SHORTAGE OF SCHOOL TEACHERS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 27, 11 March 1942, Page 4

SHORTAGE OF SCHOOL TEACHERS

AN advertisement ir the BEACON reminds us of the drastiic position in which the Education Board finds itself as a result of the unprecedented shortage of teachers. The com mittee of the Te Haehaenga school has been requested by the Board to ta«;e the matter of staffing their school into their own hands owing to the complete absence of available teachers under its jurisdiction. In other words the public at large is bein- combed once again in the hope that some retired person, or perhaps even one without experience will • be oifering. The position, though bad enough can be expected to deteriorate still further when the new ballots for married men are released. It recalls the. years of the last war, twenty years ago when a similar state of affairs prevailed. Old residents can well remember the desperate shortage of teachers in these parts, which, not being so easy of access as they are now, were considered more or less in the backblocks.' In. those days,, particularly towards the latter end of the war, the Board, was pleased to employ almost any person with an ordinary share of general knowledge, and it is quite likely that we will experience the same again. We definitely have signs of it already. Again, the position will be aggravated even after the war, for a big percentage of teachers, having cultivated the freedom of the openair existence of army life never went back to their own occupations. The bulk of them went farming, and the same tendency can be expected at the conclusion of this wai.