TRAINING OF TEACHERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 66, 19 March 1925, Page 4

TRAINING OF TEACHERS.

The old Training College in Wellcsley Street is not an impressive building. The new one rising in Mt. Edrn will be to the public a more spectacular proof of the need for training teachers long and carefully. This building, of which the foundation stone was laid yesterday, is both a sign and a promise. It marks the progress of the city and the Dominion, it is part of a new order in education, and it symbolises the belief that is placed in the schools. We hope it will not be long before the students get an assembly hall, for an institution like this is seriously Incomplete without this centre of its corporate life. Incidentally we may note that its completion will mean the end of that abomination of ugliness, the annexe in the Domain; or perhaps we ought to say "should moan," for an attempt may be made to put it to other use.-;. The Training College stands for that special preparation which is now expected of teachers, and the Minister's figures show how the influence of thig training on the profession is increasing. When he took office, he said, there were 347 students in the colleges of the Dominion ; now there are 1200. Not so long ago the Department was short of teachers; now it has more young people offering than it can accept, which means that it is able to raise the standard of students. Five years ago thirty-four per cent of teachers were "unqualified, untrained and uncertificatcd." One result of this increase in numbers is that classes can be reduced in size. Five years ago half the classes had more than 60 children to a teacher, and in some there were double that number. There are now, says Sir James Parr, very few classes in Auckland containing over sixty, and he is trying to make sixty the maximum. The limit might well be lower.