HC Deb 02 March 1961 vol 635 cc1734-5
15. Mrs. Slater

asked the Minister of Education whether married women returning to the teaching profession are included in a local education authority's quota for women teachers.

The Minister of Education (Sir David Eccles)

During 1961, authorities may recruit outside the quota married women returning to full-time teaching in excess of a fixed target figure. This arrangement gives an incentive to authorities to increase their recruitment.

Mrs. Slater

Does the right hon. Gentleman mean that this will apply only during 1961? Will there not be a hardship, perhaps, put on new students coming out of college because they may enter into the quota also and, therefore, a local authority will have to reduce the number of students that it takes on?

Sir D. Eccles

Not at all. This is a continuing campaign. It is necessary to see how the various authorities get on in order to determine the conditions for future years.

25. Sir B. Janner

asked the Minister of Education whether he will now make a statement on the result of his advertising campaign for increasing the number of teachers in the country.

Sir D. Eccles

Interest in this campaign shall shortly ask local education authorities for information about the position reached by the end of this month.

Sir B. Janner

Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the difficulties arising in consequence of the pensions of teachers being counted as part of their salaries in the event of their being re-employed in this way? Does he not think it important that teachers who have acquired pensions should be allowed to keep them irrespective of any salary they may get?

Sir D. Eccles

I have sent a memorandum to local authorities on the pensions question, and I will send the hon. Member a copy.

Dr. King

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the House appreciates both his campaign and that which local authorities are undertaking to recruit teachers, but will he look into the anomalies which act as a disincentive to people coming back, particularly the anomaly that if a retired teacher comes back to help the Minister in time of crisis he is unable to get any benefit from any rise in salary in the profession which has taken place since he left it?

Sir D. Eccles

This is a difficult question applying to all public servants. I will look into it, although it has always proved very hard to solve.

30. Mrs. White

asked the Minister of Education what he has done to implement the undertaking given last June that he would offer inducements in competition with Imperial Chemical Industries and Shell to university students who are prepared to enter the teaching profession

Sir D. Eccles

I have sought the help of the 'teachers, and the campaign is going well, as is shown by the number of graduates entering the teaching profession.

Mrs. White

Can the Minister not be a little more explicit? In the undertaking to which I am referring and which he gave to the Conservative and Unionist Teachers Association, he suggested that he was to make some extraordinary payment to graduates in competition with these industrial firms, saying that they went around with their recruiting sergeants offering so much more than a bob a nob and that he was proposing to do the same. Can he tell us what he meant by that?

Sir D. Eccles

I am glad that the hon. Lady has asked that question, because I never said that. I have taken great trouble to look up what I said. I said that we would compete with the recruiting campaign of the big firms in the universities and we are now competing by sending teachers as our recruiting sergeants, and I think the figures prove that they are doing a good job.