Bay Of Plenty Beacon Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. MONDAY, SEPT. 26, 1949

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 14, Issue 43, 26 September 1949, Page 4

Bay Of Plenty Beacon Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. MONDAY, SEPT. 26, 1949

HOSTELS FOR TEACHERS Last Monday it was reported that, if private board cannot be found for her, the Whakatane primary school will lose the services of a woman teacher. This when teaching staff is desperately short, is a situation that gives fair scope to neither teachers nor pupils. Whakatane is not the only part of the district thus affected.

For some time now the position has been equally desperate at Edgecumbe, and the ParentTeacher Association there has moved for the establishment of a hostel to accommodate not only Edgecumbe teachers, but those from at least three neighbouring schools as well. Though there is no official blessing for the scheme as yet, there does seem to be justification for a certain optimism, and it is likely that a similar suggestion from Whakatane would not only strengthen the Edgecumbe case but so focus attention on the problem in this part of the Education Board’s district that some early action might be taken. Here it might not be the easiest thing to provide full board by means of a hostel on account of the difficulty of finding staff to run it, but the idea of a modest block of flats immediately suggests itself as a means of solving the problem and at the same- time establishing something that would more or less run itself and be self-supporting. It is quite likely that such a plan might appeal to the Chamber of Commerce and other organisations that have staffing difficulties, too, and it might be possible to group their interests to establish a block of flats that would serve to accommodate not only unmarried teachers and others willing to take care of themselves but some of the young married couples who are desperatefy in need of places to start housekeeping on their own account.

Admitted, a building permit might be a temp stumbling block, but it has to be admitted that permi s have been granted in this district for buildings no more urgently needed in the public interest than the one here suggested. Recognition of the urgent need for more accommodation has already been given by the Chamber of Commerce and the Borough Council in their expressed support for the idea that another hotel would be warranted here. But, as at least one correspondent has already pointed out, not all seekers after accommodation can afford to pay licensed hotel rates. Therefore, while it must be generally recognised that another licensed house, would help to solve the problem, it wil be as readily agreed that that cannot hope to solve it entirely.

This matter of accommodation for teachers is a question of. general public interest, though the bodies most directly concerned With it are naturally the Education Board, the School Committee and the Parent-Teacher Association. But there would be every justification for those directly concerned to seek the cooperation of the rest of the community in working out a plan that would solve this problem and, in so ..doing, go a long way towards solving the larger problem of accommodation in general. '