Teachers and teaching -
Training

The four initial free kindergarten associations, each of whom established and funded separate two year teaching training programmes, adopted Froebel’s call for the need for specialised education of teachers through teacher training colleges. Trainees worked in the kindergarten in the morning and attended lectures in the afternoon. In 1941 the Government provided training allowances but the bulk of the training costs remained the responsibility of the four training associations. More change came in 1947 with the development of the first national syllabus of training and in 1950 the first Diplomas of the New Zealand Free Kindergarten Union were issued. The training associations gained a substantial increase in Government assistance but at the loss of autonomy in areas such as the number of students to be enrolled. [i]

The early 1970s brought the integration of kindergarten teacher training with primary teacher colleges. The control of teacher training was transferred from the four training associations to the four state Teachers College Councils. Two new sites were established at Hamilton and Palmerston North Teachers Colleges. The new units become known as Division E – early childhood education. Provision was made for kindergarten representation on the new councils and an Advisory Committee on Early Childhood Committee was established in each college. None the less, for the free kindergarten movement, it was the end of an almost ninety year era of kindergarten training.

The post-war era also brought significant changes as to who became a teacher. Improvements in salaries, the introduction of full time positions and the expanding need for teachers to staff the rapid growth in kindergarten made kindergarten teaching a career for women from a wider social range. Māori and working class girls entered into training. Married women were considered for entry into training from 1963 and in 1973 men gained a foot in the student-training door. The first male kindergarten teacher was David Carmichael, a lecturer from Dunedin’s Kindergarten Teachers’ College. Students were granted the right to be called teacher trainees in 1978.[ii]

Kindergarten teacher training also underwent significant changes over the 1980s and 1990s. The implementation of three year training to bring kindergarten training into line with primary training was followed with the integration of kindergarten and childcare training into one early childhood education qualification.