Educational

Observer, Volume XI, Issue 717, 24 September 1892, Page 10

Educational

Communications on educational matters are invited from teachers and others interested in the work of education. These communications should be addressed to ' The Editor Educational Column, Observer Office.'

Oub standard examinations are not conducted in a manner that is for the best interests of the scholars. We make far too much of the individual pass system, and not enough of the class examination system. The introduction of class examination into the syllabus in recent years in history, geography and grammar has been brought about by the repeated representations of the Council of the Institute, and ought to be extended to every subject. There is not the slightest need that an inspector should come into a school and individually probe every child in that school with questions. This only intensifies the evils of examinations, whilst all our endeavours should be to lessen them.

Large sums of money are yearly spent on education in the colony, and of course the people must have some guarantee that the money is being properly epeDfc and that our schools are well conducted. To find out whether the children have been efficiently taught, and have made good progress, it is absolutely necessary for an inspector to hold some sort of examination. But we declare most emphatically that it is not necessary that an inspector should conduct an individual pass examination and give successful children a certificate. The public want to know how the children have been taught and the school conducted, and an inspector can find out this information and communicate it to the public without telling Smiih, Brown and Itobinson at the same time that they have passed a certain standard, and Jones that he has failed.

The inspector could examine the pupils, either orally or could set them questions to answer on paper. Let him conduct the examination as exhaustively as he likes in each subject. Let him examine each scholar if he so wishes, and spend twice the time that is now usually taken to examine a school. But when he has done all this, let his report take a form different from that now in vogue. Let the report state in generai terms how the inspector finds each class has been faught in each subject. Percentages might be given just as they are now given in class subjects, although as a rule percentages are most misleading, A good report of this character might be made far more satisfactory to the public than a list containing the number of children presented, the number absent, the number passed, and the number failed, together with a number of misleading percentages.

While we admit that an inspector may form a very good opinion of the sort of work done in each subject and in each class by the present method of conducting standard examinations, yet it is quite impossible for him to form a correct opinion of what each individual scholar knows. Is i". not a fact that an inspector goes into a school of 800 or 900 children, where over 20 teachers have been industriously working for twelve months, and in seven or eight days judges the year's work of these 800 or 900 children and 20 teachers ? In that time, he has found out what each child knows and what he does not know, and has decided who are fit to be promoted and who are not fit. We think this a preposterous system. The inspectors themselves admit that it is only a rough-and-ready method. But why should a rough-and-ready method be adopted when a far more

satisfactory plan must be evident to all? Surely the teacher who has taught the children for a whole year, or perhaps for several years, knows betterr what each child oan do than the inspector does. But under the present system the classification of the children is taken entirely out of the teacher's hands. His children are classified for him by one who does not know one tithe as much about them as the teacher does. It is an absurd system. The province of an inspector should not encmach upon that of the teacher. Let the inspector examine and report ; let the teacher classify and promote the children.

Some inspectors say that because teachers can put children into a higher class, whether they have failed or not, therefore the teachers have the classification in their own hands. This is all very well with regard to children who ought to have been passed. The teacher can safely do (hat. But with regard to children who were passed, and were not fit to pass, the case is very different. At the next examination these children must be sent up for a higher examination than that which they last passed. Therefore, if the teacher does not put these children up, he must take the consequences. Now, suppose 30 children had been passed in the third standard, and the teacher who has had them for a year thinks that only 20 should have been passed so keeps 10 back and only promotes 20 to the fourth standard. When theinsppctor comes next year the 30 children must be presented in the fourth standard. Of course one third of the children cannot answer a single question, and the inspector gives the class a bad or a very poor report. On the other hand, if the teacher promoted the whole 30 children to the fourth standard, there would be a chance of some of the ten backward children passing the next standard, and at the very leaat they would know something about the work ; and so the class would obtain better marks in class subjects. It is all nonsense for inspectors to say that we have freedom 50 classify the children. Teachers have not freedom of classification until they oan put children down as well as up. Of course it would never be necessary to put children down were it not for the rough-and-ready methods of inspectors, by which children are passed before they are fit. There is no freedom of classification where teachers are driven, for the sake of their livelihood, to put children in a higher class, whether they are fit or not.

Apropos of the proposed reduction of salaries, a lady has handed us the following, with a request for its insertion. -Sir, - Over nineteen years ago Mr Worthington began to teach in the city of Auckland in St. Paul's School, Official Bay. I have a lively recollection of the class of boys who attended the school in those days. Many of them were over- grown lads from parochial schools, or boys who had seldom or never attended any school. Only a strict disciplinarian, and an excellent teacher such as Mr Worthington proved himself to be, could have brought order out of chaos. His methods brought about such good results that they gradually obtained in all the schools of Auckland. With the exception of a few teachers like Mr Worthington, those who offered their services to the Board were for the most part untrained and inefficient. To remedy this, Mr Worthington opened classes which were of great assistance to teachers, and which were eventually incorporated in the Training College. Not only former pupils, but many teachers, to my knowledge, owe such success as they have gained in life to Mr Worthington, and gladly acknowledge the same. These, and many others who know what he has done for education in Auckland, see with indignation the efforts made by a section of the Board of Education to lower his salary, and the salaries of those who, like him, have borne the burden and heat of the day.

The election of a member of the Board of Education to fill the vacancy caused by Ihe resignation of Mr J. L. Kelly is already engaging some attention. Mr S. Wilding has announced himself, and with the exception of his inclination to reduce the salaries of headmasters within a maximum of £300, his views appear to be sound. Poorly paid head masters will, however, prove fatal to the efficiency of the system. Efforts are being made to induce Mr R. Farrell to stand. He takes an absorbing interest in the cause of education, and has been a member of school committees here and at the Thames continuously for the last thirteen years. That he would have made a good member is beyond question, but he is disinclined to stand— this time, at all events.