TRAINING OF TEACHERS

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27037, 12 May 1953, Page 12

TRAINING OF TEACHERS

“FIVE COLLEGES ARE NOT ENOUGH” VIEWS OF MINISTER OF EDUCATION (New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, May 11; New Zealand’s five training colleges were not enough, said the Minister of Education (Mr R. M. Algie) addressing the annual meeting of the New Zealand Educational Institute today. “If I had a magic wand, and could wave it and produce a sixth college, we could fill it next year,” he said. “But we must remember that New Zealand is a young country, which derives all its income from what we get from our surplus food." The emergency school teachers’ training scheme was a good second best | that was coming along well, he added. He had found in visits to schools that these teachers undergoing their year's probationary training had in all cases been well spoken of by head masters. New Zealand’s primary school population had increased by 19,000 last February, said Mr Algie. Today in primary and intermediate schools in New Zealand there were 269,000 pupils. Significant figures in the assimilation of the Maori population were that 31,750 Maori children were now school pupils. Board schools held 18,000. “The others remain in Maori schools because we are unable to provide board schools in those districts,” said Mr Algie. These figures could well be compared with those of 70 years ago, when the Maori population was only 10,000. There were 2000 of school age, of whom only 760 were in board schools.

MR NASH ADDRESSES CONFERENCE ROLE OF TRAINING COLLEGES (New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, May 11. In his opinion, more independence in the fullest sense of the word was needed for training colleges, said the Leader of the'Opposition (Mr Nash) at the opening of the New Zealand Educational Institute's annual meeting today. Many years ago, he had advocated the setting up of eight independent training colleges in New Zealand, he said. Each was to be entirely independent, with the Curriculum left, to the principal. In that way, he believed, individual teaching would educate the individual and bring out and develop personality and character.