New scheme ‘threat to student morale'

Press, 21 April 1979, Page 5

New scheme ‘threat to student morale'

The Government’s emerg e n c y teacher-training scheme will undermine the morale of teacher trainees who are at present going to considerable trouble and expense to attend teachers’ college, according to the president of the Christchurch Secondary Teacher Trainees’ Association (Mr M. J. Marshall). Mr Marshall, who is also on the executive of the New Zealand Student Teachers’ Association, said it was essential that all teachers be adequately

prepared for the classroom. The Government, facing a staff shortage in secondary schools, plans to recruit untrained university graduates for a one-term, school-based course of training and then place them in schools-. University graduates usually take a one-year course at teachers’ college before starting to teach. Non-graduates take a three-year course. Mr Marshall said that as well as being a “bad deal” for the untrained

teachers themselves, the Government’s proposal would put an extra burden on the senior teachers who would be expected to train them. The quality of pupils’ education would also be undermined. A meeting of the association’s executive in Auckland recently rejected the Government’s proposal, and resolved to support any action taken by the Post-Primary Teachers’ Association to get better conditions of service for teachers after they have left teachers’ college.