Longer Training For Teachers Suggested

Press, Volume C, Issue 29680, 25 November 1961, Page 13

Longer Training For Teachers Suggested

Mr G W. Southgate, head of the social studies department at the Christchurch Teachers’ College, will retire at the end of this year after a lifetime of service in primary, post-primary, and university education. The need uppermost in his mind is that teachers should have longer training before they enter the schools.

“My seven years at the Teachers’ College have been the most stimulating in my career, but I am more than ever convinced that training is too short for the job these young people have to do,” he said yesterday. “The reasons were very fully covered in the evidence which the Christchurch Teachers’ College staff presented to the

Education Commission early this year. “I still hope for the day When university entrance will be the minimum qualification for entrance to Teachers’ College.” Mr Southgate said. “The subjects required would be much better preparation, apart from the implicit achievement at a higher level. Pupil Teaching "I have another personal feeling which is not shared by everybody else in our field," said Mr Southgate. “That is that there was a good deal of merit in the old pupil-teacher system. Those Of us who had a period in the schools before we entered Teachers' College were matured by the experience.

and we certainly had a better appreciation of the problems we would later nave to handle in the schools. Either by some such method or by higher entrance qualifications, teacher trainees stand to gain much more from their time in college and their time there should certainly be longer." Mr Southgate was a pupil teacher in Outram (Otagoi in 1922 - 23 and represented Otago as a front-row Rugby forward. For the next two years he trained at the Dunedin Teachers’ College. From 1928 to 1929 he was on the staff of the Fairlie District High School and for two years represented South Canterbury at Rugby. Then came a period at the Rangiora Borough School from 1930 to 1936, after which he was at the then new Shirley Intermediate School for four years. New Fields Mr Southgate’s next service was in some of the new fields of education. He was the Canterbury Museum’s second education officer, succeeding Mr G. Guy, who is now his principal at the Teachers’ College. From 1949 to 1954 he was Canterbury University College’s second director of adult education. Sweeping reforms had just been approved with new regional councils of adult education responsible to the university councils and the extension of more academic types of Instruction to all parts of the university districts. Under Mr Southgate Canterbury staff and services were greatly expanded. After seven years training teachers in social studies, Mr Southgate believes the new subject is sound. He believes that the new syllabus will "remove a lot of the bugs” and win general approval “Above aH I have tried to impress on students that they will teach children, not just subjects," said Mr Southgate.