TRAINING TEACHERS.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 18848, 10 April 1931, Page 5

TRAINING TEACHERS.

REDUCED NUMBER NEXT YEAR. Complaints that too many young people are being taken into the teaching profession, so that it becomes overcrowded and many of those trained for the work cannot obtain positions, will probably be met by the Education Department training less students next year and allowing the appointment of fewer probationers. The number of probationers appointed next year will probably be less than usual, a departmental announcement received by the Canterbury Education Board says. The board at present appoints 90 probationers, who serve in a school for one year before going on to the Training College for two or three years. In some centres, particularly in the North Island, it has been urged recently that too many probationers were being taken on by the department, so that the teaching profession became crowded. Officially the Department’s reason for suggesting that the number will be reduced next year is that “Staff wastage, in consequence of death, marriage and retirements, has been, from various causes, less than usual.” Actually, however, it is thought that th'e plea for a steadying up in the rate of training of new teachers has had some weight in inducing the authorities to reduce the number of entrants next year. The Departmental announcement also says that it may be necessary to retain some of the present probationers —that is, young teachers who entered the service this year—in the schools, instead of sending them to Training Colleges next year. This would mean the training of fewer students in the Training Colleges next year. It is provided, however, that persons training now will still be trained for four years as in the case of all other teachers in training. The Department states that a definite 1 announcement of the policy intended to be enforced next year, both with regard to appointments of probationers and the number of entries into colleges, will be made later in the year.