asked the Minister for Education if he will consider removing the ban on the employment of married women teachers in view of the present scarcity of trained teachers and the injustice it involves to married teachers who at the time of its imposition were already in the training colleges.

The question of the continuance in operation of the rule requiring women national teachers to retire on marriage is one of general policy involving considerations of a social and economic as well as of an educational nature. It would not be appropriate to decide the issue on the ground that there was a temporary shortage of trained teachers. The Department must leave itself free to frame new conditions of service in the case of persons who are only in course of preparation for the teaching profession, and I do not agree, therefore,that any injustice was done in the case of those to whom the Deputy refers.