Submitted by admin on April 22, 2009 - 23:00
EDUCATION, SPECIAL ASPECTS — TEACHER TRAINING
In 1965 there were nine teachers' training colleges in New Zealand. Two of them (Dunedin and Christ-church) had been established just prior to the passing of the Education Act of 1877. By 1881 colleges had also been opened at Wellington and Auckland. Each of the four colleges had an attached normal school. For many years trainees had to pay their own expenses, and the main avenue of entrance to teaching was through the pupil-teacher system (in effect a form of apprenticeship).
The rapidly increasing school population and the consequent need for more teachers after the Second World War led to the opening of five more teachers' colleges: Ardmore (fully residential – 1948), Palmerston North (1956), Hamilton (1960), and North Shore (Auckland) (1963); and (in 1964) the post-primary department of the Auckland Teachers' College became an independent institution — the Auckland Post-primary Teachers' College. The rolls at all colleges have increased, and were in 1964:
Men | Women | Total | |
Auckland | 194 | 380 | 574 |
Auckland post-primary | 150 | 323 | 473 |
North Shore | 72 | 241 | 313 |
Ardmore | 161 | 376 | 537 |
Hamilton | 116 | 306 | 422 |
Palmerston North | 106 | 337 | 443 |
Wellington | 126 | 395 | 521 |
Christchurch | 262 | 572 | 834 |
Dunedin | 140 | 434 | 574 |
Totals | 1,327 | 3,364 | 4,691 |
These figures include 3,970 primary teacher-trainees and 721 post-primary teacher-trainees. In addition, there were some 1,739 trainees attached to the teachers' colleges but attending university fulltime to complete degrees and diplomas preparatory to undertaking the one-year course for post-primary teaching conducted at Auckland and Christchurch teachers' colleges. Thus, in 1964 there were 6,430 students holding teaching bursaries or studentships, or in receipt of allowances, who were at one stage or another of their training as teachers. (The comparable figure was about 1,400 in 1948.)
A variety of schemes of training is available for students who wish to prepare themselves for entry to the teaching service. Primary teachers are trained in a two-year course at a teachers' training college, followed by a year in a school as a probationary assistant. The two-year course for primary teachers is to be extended to three years in two colleges a year, starting with the intakes of the Hamilton and Dunedin Teachers' Colleges in 1966. Teachers enter the post-primary service in one of three ways: first, three, four, or five years' full-time academic study at a university and (usually) one year at a teachers' college for professional training; secondly, one or two years at a teachers' college studying to become a teacher of such subjects as homecraft, commerce, mathematics and science, woodwork, or metalwork followed (except for the courses in the last two subjects) by a probationary year in a school; and, thirdly, by transfer from the primary service or from some other occupation, the qualifications for which are relevant to post-primary teaching.