J—s

After 1960 the demand for additional teachers in primary schools is likely to decline temporarily for a few years. By the early 1970'5, to-day's five-year-olds will be sending their children to swell the school rolls. Table 111 shows that the increased demand for post-primary teachers is proportionately greater than the increase in the need for primary teachers, and that it will be more sustained. Two hundred and seventy-five will be needed in 1951, and that figure will be more than doubled for 1960. Still greater increases in the post-primary school rolls after 1960 will call for the training of still more teachers. To ensure an average inflow of 370 teachers per year into the post-primary school service for the next ten years it will be necessary to increase the present number of 80 graduate students who are admitted each year to the one-year course for post-primary teacher trainees. There will be a keen demand for new university graduates in art and science, and for those who have undergone training for specialist teaching in home science, physical education, commercial instruction, woodwork, and metalwork. School Accommodation A primary-school class-room will normally hold forty children, and a post-primary class-room has a normal capacity of thirty. Using these figures, one can estimate the number of new class-rooms which will need to be built to house the increasing school population. Admittedly, a number of existing class-rooms could each absorb a few more children, but this process of absorption will probably be balanced by the cases where quite a small increase in roll numbers will create a demand for new rooms in schools which are already filled to capacity. In addition to the number of rooms required to house the future increase in school rolls, the present shortage of class-rooms must be taken into account. During the war years defence construction had first call on the capacity of the building industry, and very few school-rooms were built. Between 1945 and 1950 the shortage of building materials and the priority necessarily given to the construction of houses delayed the building of new class-rooms, and there is already in 1950 a shortage of 520 rooms to be made good in primary schools. There is also a shortage of rooms in post-primary schools, but the total is known to be much lower than in primary schools. It is disregarded in this paper. The estimate of additional class-rooms required, based on the factors mentioned above, may be tabulated as follows : Table IV —Number op Class-rooms Required to Accommodate the Rising School Population Public Public Total Primary. Post-primary. Class-rooms. Required by 1955 .. .. 2,060 470 2,530 Required between 1955 and 690 350 1,040 1960 2,750 820 3,570 A factor, largely unpredictable, that swells the demand for new buildings is the need to replace some old schools. Some of the older wooden buildings are becoming unserviceable and, in addition, the gradual shift of population away from some districts is leaving surplus class-rooms there while others are urgently needed in newly populated districts. In other words, some schools must be replaced because they are no longer in the right place to be useful. Another 100 class-rooms will possibly be required for this reason. New Schools Merely to state the number of new class-rooms required does not give an adequate picture of the work to be done. A large number of class-rooms will, of course, be built simply as additions to existing schools, but a number of entirely new schools must be

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