SCHOOL COMMITTEES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 168, 15 July 1908, Page 8

SCHOOL COMMITTEES.

! (To the Editor.) Sir, —The remarks of "Education" on the above subject have my heartiest approval, although the abolition of school committees is not an urgent. necessity, provided they are not asked to undertake work they are totally unfit for, i.e., the selection of teachers for their schools. This is a matter that requires a great deal more attention than is at present given to it. I doubt if there is any body of workmen who -would so long have put up with such a haphazard system of promotions, and have laboured under so many anomalies as our school teachers. Do you know that in the city of Auckland there are teachers drawing a yearly salary of over £100 more than other teachers of higher classification? Is it not a fact that many teachers are doomed to pass their whole career in the backblocks without any association with the centres where education is kept more in touch with modern times? Can we compare tha miserable houses of teachers with the buildings now being erected as workmen's homes? I contend, Sir, that teachers are ns a class unequally paid, improperly housed, and appointed under a very poor system (if system it may be called). What teachers should ask for, and what the general public siiould demand as advancing the educational cause, are:—(l) A fuller classification of teachers; (2) payment according to ability; (3) the appointment of all teachers by the Education Board of the district, or some one central holy, wbo sball Jrave power to say to a teaclicr, "Go there!" or "Come here:" without consulting the teacher. This would proTide for exchanges between town and country, would give the country teacher ■more opportunity for improvement, and would enable settlers in the back - blocks to secure the services of efficient teachers for their children. (4) Lastly, but not least, the retirement of all decrepit or incompetent teachers, who not only fail to do their work, but fill places which might be granted to more deserving officials.—l am, etc., HORI.