SCHOOL COMMITTEES AND BOARDS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 91, 17 April 1913, Page 4

SCHOOL COMMITTEES AND BOARDS.

The Education Board yesterday adopted a new scheme for grading teachers, and also new regulations for their appointment. There are a great many interesting features in this new system,' some of which will, no doubt, come up for discussion later on. At present we desire to refer to one point only—the course to be followed in appointing teachers. After the position has been advertised, the new regulation states that "only one name, that -of the teacher which appears highest on the graded list, be submitted to the School Committee concerned." Here, as our readers will observe, the Board makes the appointment, and sends on the name to the Committee; and the Committee's share in the appoint-' ment becomes an absolute formality. Now, in our opinion, this should not be so. As wo pointed out, in discussing this question last year, the only reason-, able construction that can be put upon the clauses of the Education Act dealing with the appointment of teachers is that Parliament intended the Committees to be consulted by the Boards: and to go through the form of consulting them, while submitting only one name for their acceptance, is manifestly farcical. If the Board has construed the Act correctly, and its powers in regard to appointment are entirely subversive of the rights the Committees once enjoyed, then, in our opinion, the Act should be amended. For it seems to us that the School Committees have a legitimate claim to make their voices heard iv iregurd to the appointment of teachers, arid that if this right is denied them they cease to have an appreciable value as factors in our education system. However, it is open to question whether such a regulation as the Board has now adopted is not "ultra vires/ and we hope that the Committees win take steps to test the Board's pretensions without delay.