TRAINING OF TEACHERS

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21631, 15 November 1935, Page 19

TRAINING OF TEACHERS

<► CLASSES TOO LARGE? INJUSTICE TO WELLINGTON AND OTAGO ALLEGED A protest against the Government's action in keeping the Wellington and Otago teachers' training colleges closed while there will be over-large classes in the colleges at Auckland and Christchurch is contained in a statement issued by the New Zealand Educational Institute. "It is important that the public should grasp the full significance of the announcement of the Minister fof Education that 550 new trainees will be admitted to the Auckland and Christchurch colleges next year," the statement says. "The Minister's statement means, first, that the Wellington and Otago Training Colleges are to be kept closed although next year there will be very nearly as many students in training as there were in 1932. when the four colleges were in operation: and, second, that the Government has no intention of making any appreciable reduction in the size of classes in primary schools. "The rights and wrongs of the original decision to close the Wellington and Dunedin Training Colleges need not be discussed at the moment. The essential point is that the abnormal conditions which then obtained no longer exist. With the 400 second-year siuaents the admission of 550 new entrants will bring the total number of trainees up to 950, onJy 35 fewer than in 1932, when the four colleges were open. This is definitely unfair to prospective entrants to the profession in the Wellington and Otago districts, and to their parents, and will certainly restrict the field of recruitment. The additional cost of four centres, as compared with two, is so small if i«exists at all—as to be negligible. Nor can it be maintained that the large college is more efficient; on the contrary the balance tips decidedly in favour of the small college, which permits a maximum of personal contact between staff and students. "Of equal if not greater importance is the fact that the numbers which it is proposed to train offer no hope of any substantial reduction in the size of classes in primary schools. Authorities all over the world are agreed that classes of over 40 are incompatible with modern methods of education, and that the class of 50 or 60 is a blot on any education system. At present about 20,000 children in. New Zealand primary schools are taught in classes of over 50. The only way to meet the position is to train more students now."