Secondary Teachers’ College At Auckland

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31153, 1 September 1966, Page 9

Secondary Teachers’ College At Auckland

(Specially written for “The Press” by C

O. L. GILMORE.

Auckland Secondary Teachers’ College)

In February, 1964. secondary teacher training in Auckland was given a new lease of life by the establishment of the new Post-Primary Teachers’ College, recently renamed Secondary Teachers’ College. It is still administered by the Auckland Education Board which also administers the three colleges for training primary teachers and the primary schools in its area. The 1958 Regulations established virtual autonomy for secondary teacher training under an associate-principal. The inferior rank and staffing and many other difficulties were overcome in Auckland by the creation of a separate college with a principal and vice-principal. The dean of women had already been appointed. The cost of the change was simply the salary differences of these two and of the secretary, who became registrar. The outstanding success of this almost costless change stands to the credit of the board and the department and is a tribute to the wisdom of the associate-

principal, Mr W. R. H. Martin who retired in 1963. The first noticeable change was in the morale of the students and the staff. Professional liaison with the neighbouring Auckland Teachers’ College became easy, and mutual respect has grown as it never could when the secondary department worked under a sense of restraint and inferiority. There is now a much healthier and more natural co-operation between the staff and students of the two neighbouring colleges in a happy and informal atmosphere. Our students have their own Students’ Union and their president has recently been elected president of the newly formed New Zealand Student Teachers’ Association. With the need for lock-step timetabling now gone, both colleges are continually experimenting in ways to meet their own peculiar difficulties. There are quite fundamental differences between primary and secondary

Principal

training and these demand very different approaches, organisation, timetables and even vacations. Visitors remark on the complexity of our college and this is demonstrated by our heterogeneous intake which includes those who have degrees or diplomas, those about to complete one. those who will return to the university next year to complete, those who will continue degree study while teaching, those who have a unit or two of a degree and those who have never attended and never will attend the university. Our output each year consists mostly of university graduates but in college they are outnumbered by the one, two and three-year nongraduate or undergraduate courses. Ages can vary from 16 to 40 and qualifications from below School Certificate to, on one occasion, a doctorate. The courses vary in length from two terms to three years and in the case of studentship holders many are on our rolls for five or

six years. The total roll is 1087 of which 600 are on studentship. There are six distinct divisions in the college more than 90 different courses of instruction and five different teachers’ certificates involved. The secondary school child is taught by specialist teachers who should be trained by a first-class team of lecturers. Each lecturer has indirect influence each year on some twenty thousand pupils. The Secondary Teachers’ College in Auckland, heartened by some successes, daily accepts this challenge. The variety of subject qualifications held by the graduates is almost as great as the lists in university calendars. Since we offer training in three or four school subjects, each student must have his own individual time-table. A lecturer meets students with honours in his subject and at the other extreme some who have only fourth-form grounding. All this is a tremendous task and we appreciate the freedom we now have to adjust to the needs as they arise. The complexity and the highly-specialised training coupled with the unpredictable and often inefficiently small numbers in each tutor group provide us with continuing staffing difficulties and a lecturer load almost double that of our primary colleagues. Yet most of our work is at post-graduate level. Nevertheless, our staff members manage to publish texts, articles and reviews, edit educational journals and make considerable contributions to courses of in-service training. Many in-service courses are now held in the college which is central and has the necessary facilities. For this, close liaison with the Education Department and with the teachers is important. There is seldom a night when the college is not being used for some student or teacher activity aimed directly or indirectly at the improvement in the education of bur young New Zealanders.