Teachers’ Grading

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22705, 9 May 1939, Page 8

Teachers’ Grading

In his address to the annual conference of the New Zealand Educational Institute, the Minister for Education, the Hon. P. Fraser, issued a polite warning to primary school teachers that, unless they adopted a more liberal and constructive attitude to the problem of grading, the Government would feel compelled to revise the grading system without their assistance. In this matter the Minister has already been more than patient. The system of numerical grading, which came into force in 1916, has for more than a decade been regarded by all dispassionate students of the New Zealand education system, and indeed by a substantial proportion of the members of the New Zealand Educational Institute, as the greatest single factor retarding advance in primary education. It is generally agreed, for instance, that the proper function of inspectors in an enlightened education system is to advise, assist, and guide teachers. But the main task of a New Zealand primary school inspector is to sit in judgment on every teacher in his district once a year, to assess his worth in terms of a mathematical formula, and, in co-operation with other inspectors, to draw up a list which purports to assess the relative merits of every primary school teacher in the country. The task is so exacting that the inspector has little time to give to the more positive and useful work of advising; and in any case the teacher inevitably comes to regard the inspector not as an expert helper but as a judge whose verdict will determine his salary and his prospects of promotion. Moreover, the need for devising uniform tests of teaching ability tends to encourage uniform teaching methods and, in the words of a Chief Inspector of Primary Schools, “makes “ it hopeless to expect teachers to break away “ from traditional methods and show original- “ ity.” Shortly after he became Minister for Education, Mr Fraser invited the New Zealand Educational Institute to co-operate with the Education Department in working out a system of grading which, while it would safeguard teachers against caprice or favouritism in appointments and promotions, would liberate inspectors and the system as a whole from a stultifying routine. An alternative to mathematical grading was devised; but the members of the institute, in a postal ballot, decided by a small majority in favour of continuing the present scheme. But however anxious the Minister may be to have the support of the teachers for his reforms, he cannot allow their opposition to block a change without which little progress is possible. In its time, the institute has pioneered some notable reforms in education and hitherto has usually been in advance of official and popular thinking on educational problems. It is possible to hope that it will not mar this record by defending what is indefensible.