TEACHING STAFFS

Otago Witness, Issue 3313, 12 September 1917, Page 21

TEACHING STAFFS

A SERIOUS DEPLETION

..The Minister of Education (Hon. J. A. Hanan), in referring to the patriotism shown by school teachers in enhsting for active service, strongly stresses the difficulties in regard to carrying on school work satisfactorily in consequence of the serious depletion of the teaching ranks. In his annual report the Minister makes tho following comments on the subject:— " Because the schools all appear to be going on as usual, few people realise the great drain made by the war on our teaching staffs. Up to the present fully 650 primary school teachers have gone on active service. This is over one-third of the number of men teachers employed when war broke out. The remainder consists almost entirely of men of the Second Division., youths under 20 years of age, and men who have enlisted but have been rejected as medically unfit. In fact, it would be diffi- • cult to find a score of physically fit men teachers of the First Division who did not enlist. 'Secondary school and technical school teachers have an equally proud record, while four school inspectors, a-training college principal, and two professors havo also enlisted. It is little to be wondered at that the boys who have been taught and influenced in our schools by teachois with such evident devotion to their country should follow the example of their teachers and conduct themselves both on and off the field in a way that wins for them our love and admiration. To show in a definite way how the depletion of our staffs through enlistment has affected the schools, it may be stated that in most of our largest schools whore there are to be fourd from 200 to 400 boys, there is only to be found one mal« class teacher, Mid very few havo more than two. In one purely -boys' school six assistants out of seven are women. Tho thanks of the r>a.rents of the riomiinon are due to the large number of ex-teachers, some of them superannuated, who have come back to the schools to keep the work going."