TEACHERS' ALLOWANCE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 348, 8 October 1932, Page 2

TEACHERS' ALLOWANCE

NEW SYSTEM REDUCTION THROWS EXTRA BURDEN UPON PARENTS. The new system of allow'anca payments for student teachers will probably cause a decrease in the number of entrants for tlae profession, because it will throw a burden on the parents , for some years after the young men and women have left secondary schools, it was statsd to a reporter ' recently. ! The Minister of Education (the 1 Hon. R. Masters, M.L.C.), has ,an- ; nouncsd that in future the allowances ! will be £20 a year, whereas maia stu- ! dents now receive just ovar £72 and j female .students just over £68. The ' jjfesent boarding allowance for stuj dents who 'have to live away from I home is £30. The new allowance is" tq ! be £40, but this will have to be reI paid to the department hy instalments I when the stuuent seeures a permanent | teaching position. The reducing of the allowances, it was stated, would mean that many j parents would have to help student j teachers during the two or three years . attendance at Training College. The ! allowance, with' the boarding allow- " ance, would make only £60 a year in | the case of students having to live i away from home — which most of'them j would have to do when two of the ' present four colleges were closed — and this would hardly pay- the board and ineidental expenses of the students for the 36 weeks that college • was open. > It would mean that parents would have to help, even more than they had now, in the maintenanee of their sons and daughter s Who were studying to enter the teaching profession. During two years at college each student would incur a debt of £80 in boarding allowances, and specialist students would become liable for £120. This would have to he repaid hy .instalments, under the new regulations. Teachers leaving college were lucky now to get a' job at £100 a year. It would be almost impossible for them to work off the debt without assistance from home, unless the department was prepared to let it stand over for some years till the teachers had obtained posts with more generous salary. j The new regulations meant that the f department was putting up tha whole cost of entry to the teaching profession and many families would be unable to face the burden of substantially maintaining sons or daughters for from two to four years after leaving secondary school. The Minister also announced that the bond system is to bs abandoned. This, the reporter was told, had al- . ways been considered farcical. Students had been obliged to sign a bond to stay in the profession for five years after leaving college in the case" of males and three years in the case of females. The forfeit in the event of default was £250. The department had not insisted in collecting in cases of default ih the past. It had evidently been realised chat the agreement was one-sided. The student was not guaranteed a teaching position, but was barred from taking any other permanently because his parents or other bond signatories would then lose £250.