EMPLOYMENT OF TEACHERS

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 126, 25 February 1928, Page 10

EMPLOYMENT OF TEACHERS

“POSITION NOT WORSE THAN USUAL” WHAT A RETURN SHOWS PROBABLE VACANCIES ESTIMATED With reference to the complaints regarding unemployed teachers, the Education Department has obtained returns from education boards which indicate that the position is not worse than usual. According to these returns the number of teachers seeking employment during the current year is 1.389, while tCic estimated '-umber of vacancies will be 1418. Discussing the matter yesterday, the Minister of Educaitou (lion. R. ' A. Wright) stated that the information obtained by the Department was as follows

“Teachers without permanent positions in December last number 340; probationary assistants completing their training in December, 177; substituted assistants, 218; students leaving the Training College, 654; or a total of 1389 teachers for whom positions have to be found during the year. On the other hand, the number of probationary and substituted assistants required this year is 460, and the boards estimate the number of relieving teachers required as 355, the probable number that will retire from the profession during the year as 562, and the additional teachers required for new positions as 41, or a total of 141 S primary school teacher positions to be filled during 1928. "That the. boards’ figures regarding probable vacancies are made out on a conservatvie basis is shown by the facts that the number of teacher contributors who retired under the Superannuation Act last year was 588, wjiile there were a number of other retirements making the total well over 600, and that the average number of new positions during the five years ending 1926 were 185, yet the boards give the retirements as 562 and the new positions as only 41. “The Department has made careful calculations regarding the probable number of new teachers required on several occasions during the past five years,” added the Minister, “and its estimates are confirmed by the result of the boards’ inquiries,' which show that before the end of the year there should be few trained teachers unemployed tinless teachers confine their applications to large towns or to certain districts.”