WHAT COUNTS ?

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30512, 6 August 1964, Page 7

WHAT COUNTS ?

The day of the teaching machine is just around the corner. Mr M. H. Rodger told the thirteenth conference of the Australian . Science Teachers’ Association. Mr Rodger, who is science master at Scotch College, South Australia, said Australian teachers would benefit by studying an American system where students could secure a science degree from a television course. He said it was all very well to have elaborate science laboratories and equipment but teachers still bore the responsibility for success or failure. Addressing the same conference, Professor E. W. Titterton, professor of nuclear physics in the Research School > of Physical Sciences at' the Australian National University said the Federal Gov-

ernment's £5,000,000 for science blocks and equipment in Government and nonGovemment schools must not be spent on plush buildings with padded seats. “It is not the laboratory that is important,” Professor Titterton said. “It is what is in it and the people in it It would be of enormous help, if we spend the Government grant wisely, on things which allow us to teach science.” Professor Titterton said science teaching could be dull but often this was because too much money was spent “Let’s not kid ourselves,” he said. “If every science teacher in Australia had his salary doubled, it would not make any differ-ence.”—-Australia Information Bureau.