OUR SCHOOLS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 125, 28 May 1932, Page 12

OUR SCHOOLS.

EFFECTS OF LEGISLATION GROWTH DURING WAR PERIOD CENTRALISATION INCREASES GRIP. EARLY POST-WAR REACTIONS. (By HAUTURU.) I - • iv.)

The war period retarded though it did not stop the progress of education in the Dominion. In no direction more than in the provision for accommodation was this noticeable, with the result that in 1910 requests for new or additional school buildings began to pour in, and in subsequent years the building grants alone exceeded half a million —more than the total cost of education two decades previously. The fact that 900 male teachers went on active service overseas, 155 being killed in action, left an increased proportion of the staffing of schools to women teachers, and necessitated the employment in the, small country institutions of numbers of untrained and uncertificated teachers. Through replacement or through qualification by examination, this uncertificated element has now disappeared, and today the teaching service for primary schools holds much higher average educational attainments than ever before.

Yet, despite handicaps, financial and otherwise, numerous reforms and innovations were brought about during the war period. The Education Act of 1914 reduced the number of boards from 13 to nine, four of the South Island bodies, Westland, Grey, Marlborough and South Canterbury, being absorbed. A Royal Commission had previously recommended only five boards, two for the South Island and three for the North, but cither political . considerations did not favour this, or Departmental advice, fearing the creation of a smaller number of local authorities which would become proportionately more powerful, was operating against the recommendation. The boards fixed by the 1914 Act exist to this day, but with powers greatly lessened. Physical Well-being.

Medical inspection of schools, inaugurated in 1912, was considerably jfxtended- by the appointment of more female doctors, and school nurses. The cost of this service was borne by the education vote until 1921, when control of it, and of the school dental service inaugurated in 1918, was transferred to the Department of Health, so that later there was a State expenditure of over £50,000 a year on a school service which was not shown in the education vote.

The scheme of physical instruction •which replaced the older junior cadet system came into operation fully during the war period,- and the cost of special instructors for this service rose from £4000 to over £9000 a year. The course of physical training itself has undergone several radical changes since its inauguration, till at the present, with the introduction of what some people regard as the latest "fad," it is vastly different from what it was 18 years ago. Now , , also, throiigh the demands for economy, there is no itinerant physical instruction staff. This much-depleted body has perforce to confine its efforts to the training colleges, and the thorough introduction of the new system becomes dependent upon ex-trainees who go out to junior positions, and to holiday-time refresher courses for teachers. Boards Shorn of Powers.

Until 1914, the boards controlled the appointment and duties of inspectors. Then came the centralisation of the inspectorate, a severe blow to the boards, and a. decided step towards eventual centralisation. It created an anomalous position, which still exists. Inspectors are appointed by the Public Service Commissioner to board districts; they report to both boards and Department,'but are completely under control of the latter for instructions and promotion. The system produces unnecessary complexity and expense, as is inevitable with any half-way measure. In their economy proposals the boards are advocating the return of the inspectorate to their own control.

Another reform of this period was the establishment of a Dominion grading scheme for teachers, one of its objectives being the remedying of defects in appointments to echools, which had lain in the past -with boards or school committees, according to the system in vogue in each district. Once this most complicated system of teacher-grading was in full operation, it was made the eole means of promotion or transfer of teachers, with few exceptions. The grading system now has Dominion-wide application. As a general rule, the teacher with the highest marks can lay claim to a vacancy in any part of the country, moving from one district to another, but paying his own cost of removal. One noticeable effect of this plan of promotion has been the steady northward drift of teachers from southern districts. The north ie growing more rapidly, and it has climatic advantages as well. The grading scheme has removed many dissatisfactions and has created some, while it has been another factor in weakening the influence of boards. It has made teachers, in effect, the direct servants of the Department, tor to-day grading marks, not examination results, personal popularity in a district or special qualifications for a

Conditions When War Endei When the war ended, and soldierteachers returned to civilian posts wMch burst n? II -° r **?*' th " e burst of enthusiasm for education, and a public opinion favourable to the release of forced restrictions on expendit w-f , a i° UT -y™ period money was Plentiful and our primary schools reaped the benefit. In 1919 the Minieterial report to Parliament stressed such achievements as big increases in salaries to teachers, previously inadequately remunerated; further grants for school committees who had had difficult time* in making ends meet during a time or rising costs; the appointment of organising teachers to assist the strugo-lin" "uiicertificateds" in their backblock schools; the establishment of model schools for backward pupils.

When Figures Speak. It Iβ interesting to follow educational statistics from 1918, the time from

which expenditure increased by astound

<l ing amounts. In that year over a million and a,,.half was - expended on primary education, including ;£935,000 on

teachers' salaries. Theee had risen from £159 in 1913 to £187 in 1918, a growth not commensurate with that of living costs. Three years later, when the increased roll was less than 13,000 children, the primary school expenditure jumped to 1:2,000,000, of which teachers' salaries absorbed £1,455,000, an increase of over a million in total vote and half a million for salaries in three years. The average adult salary was then £292 per teacher, the highest that the profession has known. A big increase this, in three years, of over £100 per teacher, but it must be borne in mind that the increase was a belated one. For the iiret time teaching became an occupation financially attractive to young men of ability and attainment, and the results of this salary increase were quickly reflected in the mi in hers seeking entrance to a profession which, though offering! few real "plums," provided youth with I attractive financial support while in! training.