NO PROBATIONERS

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 263, 6 November 1931, Page 7

NO PROBATIONERS

NEXT YEAR'S TEACHERS. KEEN DISAPPOINTMENT. SHORT NOTICE XJIVEN. MUCH STUDY IN VAIN. Xo teaching probationers are to be appointed in 1932, according to advice received by the Canterbury Education Board from the Director of Education, Mr. T, B. Strong. This will mean that hundreds of youths and girls who have applied for positions next year will have to look for other employment. While considered opinion in Auckland concerning the decision to stop engaging probationers for twelve months agrees that in abnormal times of stress abnormal remedies are justified, educationists generally are agreed that the decision operates most unfairly against the 1031 scholars who had their eyes on teaching as a livelihood. Mr. A. Burns, chairman of the Auckland Education Board, 6aid he recognised that something was inevitable in view of the great amount of unemployment. With 20b teachers out of positions the board was faced with a serious problem.,. At the same time it was extremely regrettable that the Education Department had not managed to give longer notice of its intention. The news would come as, a great disappointment to the pupils who had been working with a yiew to taking up teaching. Examination Fees Paid. "The decision comes as a great disappointment to pupils, especially as no notice was previously given," said Mr. H. J. D. Mahon, headmaster of the Auckland Grammar School. A special teaching section was part of the postmatriculation course at the Grammar School, and about 12 boys had been study during the past year. ; WMle some of them woulcl bo able to spend their time at university study until the position was righted, other pupils might bo compelled to abandon the profession for. which they were especially equipped.

Mr. F. W. Gamble, headmaster of the Mount Albert Grammar School, pointed out that students, ■ besides , going to. the expense of a year's study,'had paid the fee for the Training College preliminary examination, but would not'be allowed to sit for it. .Six boys at the Mount Albert Grammar School had put in two years' extra study for the profession, and now found themselves, too old to take up an alternative line of employment. , "Unfair Victimisation." "1 think it unjust that pupils in one year should be victiniised in. this fashion," eaid Miss A. L. Loudon, principal of the Epsom Girls' Grammar School. "There were 24 girls here preparing for the examination, and they are all bitterly disappointed, as they came back to school this year on the understanding that they would be able to enter the. service. 3ome of the parents cannot afford to give their girls another year's education. I think a protest'against the Education Department's decision should be forthcoming from the G.ammar Schools and the parents collectively." Miss E. M. Johnston, headmistress of the Auckland Girls' Grammar School, seeing the way things were going, had already told prospective '■ probationers that there was some doubt about their getting employment. She thought the short notice given .by the Department most unfair. No warning had been issued, and the pupils of 1931 who had been preparing to take up teaching were now deprived of an opportunity of becoming teachers. Miss Johnston pointed out that most of the givls had already paid the fee for*the Training College entrance examination and now that would all be wasted. ■■■.".'.• •! 'System Too Costly. A representative headmaster, while recognising that the Department's decision operated most harshly against the 1931 pupils, said it was generally recognised that something was bound to hap-

pen. "We are wasting money in our present, system of education," he said. "We are not 'getting the goods. . Many people, including the Labour party, will not recognise that beyond a certain standard of primary education at least 50 per cent of are uneducatable. In one's experience . one comes across incontrovertible evidence that thousands ■ of pounds of the public's money is now being wasted in pushing these xiueducatable pupils indiscriminately through the secondary schools. They are quite unfitted to absorb that class of education. If they pay for it themselves no one. can complain, but it is scandalous that the public should have to find the money for all this wasted effort. "As for the probationary system, I am ijuituf satisfied that It is not the way, to train teachers. Take any of the State school men who have risen to outstanding positions, and you find that they were the product of the old pupilteacher system. That system may not have been perfect, but it did give results. It was a case of the survival of the fittest, and that; I think, was its greatest merit. After all, results are what one looks to from any system, and .by that standard the pupil-teacher system •was far and away ahead of the probationer system. Under the probationer system many men who get through by sheer 'slogging' have no real aptitude for. teaching, and they Decome hewers of Avood and drawers of water —and nothing else."