The Press FRIDAY, JULY 19, 1974. The school inspectors become instructors

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33590, 19 July 1974, Page 10

The Press FRIDAY, JULY 19, 1974. The school inspectors become instructors

The decision of the Education Department to end the biennial grading of secondary school teachers is not a sudden step. Post-primary school inspectors have been giving more emphasis in recent years to guiding teachers than to assessing them, and changes in the regulations governing appointments and promotions within the post-primary teaching service have diminished the importance of the grades that inspectors gave individual teachers. The step is in line with the general trend of the department’s policy, to exercise a less rigid control over the affairs of individual schools and leave more to the discretion of individual teachers and principals. Like other ideas put forward in pursuit of this goal, most notably the introduction of internal assessment at the school certificate level, the step has something to commend it and much to cause misgiving.

Many teachers objected to regular assessment of their performance, and it has been argued that members of other professions are not subject to regular testing after securing their initial qualification. Educational standards will not necessarily decline because teachers no longer feel constrained to adapt their teaching style to make it acceptable to the inspectors. A grading determined by occasional and short visits to the classroom may not be a reliable guide to a teacher’s worth. A teacher’s grade will no longer be available to guide school boards and principals when they make appointments to higher positions. A new danger is that promotions will be made even less on merit and more on arbitrary or personal grounds. If even one or two outstanding teachers are denied the promotion they deserve because they do not get on with a school’s principal there will be cause for concern. The end of the grading of teachers and the introduction of internal assessment of pupils may also mean that pupils’ career opportunities, and even their chances of further education, will depend too much on the reputation of their schools. This was less likely to happen so long as the Education Department was measuring the attainment of individual students and the competence of individual teachers by external and, presumably, more objective tests. If the new arrangements prove disappointing the community will devise its own ways of measuring the attainment of pupils, teachers, and schools: and these may be less just and less reliable than examinations and gradings. The department has not surrendered all power to supervise what is done in individual schools. The inspectors will continue to keep a close watch on new teachers until they have proved themselves professionally competent: and the department will continue to exercise some control over promotions to positions of responsibility and rather more over the appointments of principals. Because their duties as assessors have been reduced, inspectors are now expected to give greater attention to guiding young teachers and to the continuing education of older teachers. If inspectors are to do this effectively, men and women of calibre must be attracted into the inspectorate. The salaries are, at present, well below those earned by teachers holding senior positions in schools and teachers’ colleges. Some serious thought will have to be given to removing what must become a more conspicuous anomaly in pay.