Married Teachers

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 893, 10 February 1930, Page 8

Married Teachers

EDUCATION BOARD OBJECTS

AFTER several reverses, tlie Auckland Education Board is again pressing' the Education Department to grant it discretionary powers in dealing with such questions as that of married women teaching in schools, while their husbands are able to support them. It is claimed by members of the board that, if such teachers gave up their positions, the acute unemployment problem among women teachers would he solved.

Figures show that there are 204 young teachers in the Auckland Province this year without permanent positions. Of these, 154 are women. A few of them have found temporary positions relieving, hut there are many who are unable to justify.the expense and, in many cases, the cheerful selfdenial that their parents have undergone on their behalf. There are about 100 married women teaching at schools under the Auckland Education Board. Some of these may be supporting sick husbands. Other circumstances may justify some in retaining their positions, but that proportion, at the most generous estimate, could not represent more than half. Yet, even if these 50 women withdrew from the profession, it would result in the absorption of the surplus young teachers who are now in an unenviable position. With the average number of temporary positions that result from relieving, all the 154 women could be placed. Cases, by no means infrequent, in which husband and wife are both drawing comparatively large salaries, are particularly held up as an indication of the necessity for an alteration in the Act to bestow discretionary powers upon the board. Examples of this double-banking include that of a woman, high in the service, who is receiving more than £3OO a year while her husband, a professional man, is in receipt of a salary in excess of £4OO a year. Yet another teacher is driven to school by her husband, a comparatively wealthy man, who calls for her again in his car when her day’s work is done. A further objection raised to the employment of married women is the decreased interest in the work which one naturally expects when a woman shoulders domestic responsibilities. The rearing of a family calls for sick leave and there, again, the pupils must suffer. And the reason for this clinging to the profession is said, apart from its immediate financial advantages, to be due to the woman’s wish to complete the required term of service and qualify for superannuation. Of the young teachers married in Auckland during January, ten have continued to teach and so the position shows no sign of improving as far as the unemployed young women are concerned. Auckland has other difficulties with which to contend also.

Many teachers from other provinces, are attracted by the climate to the North, while the colder climate prejudices many Aucklanders against the South. Last year 39 more teachers came into the Auckland Province than went out of it. The Education Board has seconded its further request to the department, with the report of a specific case, but there has, as yet, been no reply. The Canterbury and Otago Boards have lately passed resolutions approving the principle for which Auckland is fighting. SAVING £2OO BOND Sheer necessity rather than cupidity is responsible for the action of many of the younger teachers according to what the husband of one of them said to a Sun man. His argument was that teachers trained by the Education Department had to enter into a bond to teach for at least three out of the first five years in the profession under a penalty of losing £2OO or more, according to whether the teacher was a probationer or a pupil teacher. The latter was a scheme that looked well on paper but did not work smoothly in fact. Young women, marrying young, rarely found themselves in the position of being able to surrender £2OO just when every penny was necessary for household expenditure. The situation was anomalous, to say the least of it, and it was even doubted in many circles whether it was legal.' A test case has not been fought on the point, but lawyers have considered it extremely doubtful whether the department has the right, not onlv to demand forfeiture of the £2OO, but to insist on the young woman teaching for the required three years. That, however, does "not affect judgment of the action of the woman who supplements her husband’s already ample income at the expense of her younger and more unfortunate colleague. Even if for her benefit alone, the board should be encouraged in its plea for discretionary powers. It must be given the credit for being able to judge each case on its merits without the rule-bound prejudice of a Government department which, remote from the surrounding facts of a case, must declare strictly by the sections of tlie Education Act under which it administrates. M.P.W.