TEACHING POSITIONS

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 152, 23 March 1939, Page 5

TEACHING POSITIONS

Appointment Of Married Women DISCRETIONARY POWER WANTED BY BOARD The employment ol married women teachers was discussed al some length at yesterday s meeting of the Wellington Education Board, when a letter was read from the Southland board asking support for its efforts to have restored to boards their former discretionary power in the employment of married women as teachers. By 11 votes to two the board decided to support (he views expressed by the Southland board.

Colonel T. W. McDonald moved that the board reply that it regretted it could not see its way to grant the request. “My memory is sufficiently alert to recall the shortage of teachers and how very glad we were to fall back on these married women teachers,” he said. “The State has been put to a big expense training them, and why should the value of that training be lost because they have carried out the natural law and have married? Are we going to dismiss them merely because they have married. In my opinion, the present slight surplus of teachers is only temporary; I believe that something will happen soon that will turn that surplus into a deficiency. 1 think it would be a serious setback if we dismissed our married women teachers. The chairman, Mr. W. V. Dyer, said he would move an amendment that the board support the Southland board. lie said be was amazed at Colonel McDonald’s attitude, which lid must surely have taken up through misapprehension. Colonel McDonald : Never.

Mr. Dyer: The colonel is mixed up over this. We don’t want to dispense with th&r services of married women teachers, but merely to get back the discretionary power of appointing them. The board has never taken tip the attitude that because a woman is married, the board should dispense with her services. Position in Wellington.

Mr. Dyer quoted from a return which, showed that the board employed 83 married women teachers. Three were in relieving and six in supernumerary positions, two were eligible for and awaiting employment, one was in training and 40 had asked for employment but had not signed a declaration that they would go away from their homes if necessary. The single teachers on the board’s relieving staff numbered 100.

Colonel McDonald raised a point of order. The chairman had moved an amendment, he said, before anyone had had an opportunity of seconding the motion. Mr. Dyer: Yes, I did. I’m sorry. Somebody will move the amendment if I don’t, so I shall second your motion pro forma. The amendment was then moved by Mr. J. .1. Clark. Mr. C. H. Nicholls: The authorities have passed regulations whereby we have practically to employ married women whether we like it or not. Colonel McDonald: To consider them along with the rest. Mr. Nicholls: We have a duty to perform not only to the married women teachers but to the young teachers as well. Reasonable Discretion Wanted. Supporting the amendment. Mr. L. J. McDonald said he did so with u good many qualifications because it. opened up the whole question of the right of the individual to engage in useful activity and the question of the right of one sex as against the other. Under the present system, avenues of advancement and proper reward for effort might become choked for young teachers, and the solution seemed to lie in the reorganization of the grading scale and reduction in the size of classes. Till those had been obtained, the board should be entitled to exercise a reasonable discretion as between the claims of the married teachers-on the one hand and of the young teachers on the other. The final test was the competence and qualifications of the teacher.

Mr. A. C. Blake said that, in the past, difficulty had been experienced in at tracting a good type of young man to the teaching profession, and, if advancement were not assured, the same difficulty would arise again. Colonel McDonald : What would happen if war broke out, and it looks as though it may be very soon, You’d expect the married women to carry on the education of the young while the men were away. You’d say, “Well, done, tlrou good and faithful married women.”

The amendment was carried by 11 votes to 2, only the mover and Mr. G. M. Henderson voting against it.