TEACHERS’ POSITIONS

Evening Star, Issue 19800, 25 February 1928, Page 12

TEACHERS’ POSITIONS

DEMAND EQUALS SUPPLY DEPARTMENT'S FIGURES [Pee United Press Association.) WELLINGTON, February 24. With reference to the complaints regarding unemployment among teachers at the present time, the Education Department has just obtained returns from the education .boards which indicate that the position is not worse than usual. According to those returns the number of, teachers seeking employment during the current year is 1,398, while the estimated number of vacancies will be 1,418. The information' obtained by the department is as follows: —Teachers without permanent positions in December last, 340; probationary. assistants completing their training in December, 177; substituted assistants, 218; students leaving the training college, 654; a total of 1,398 for whom positions have to bo 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 relieving teachers required as 355; the probable number, that will retire from the profession during the year ns 562; and the additional teachers required fo r new positions as 41; a total ot 1,418 primary school teacher positions to be filled during 1928. That the boards’ figures regarding probable vacancies are made out on a conservative basis is shown by the facts that the number of teacher contributors who retired under the Superannuation Act last year was 588, while 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 ended 1926 was 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, and its estimates are confirmed by the result, of the boards’ inquiries, which show that before the end of the year there should lie few trained teachers unemployed, 'unless the teachers ' confine their applications to the largo towns or to certain districts.