The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26, 1911. THE PROMOTION OF TEACHERS

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1111, 26 April 1911, Page 6

The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26, 1911. THE PROMOTION OF TEACHERS

Two of the meetings of householders held here on Monday night to elect the various school committees endorsed a proposal by the New. Zealand Educational Institute that there should be established "a Dominion scheme for the promotion of teachers." The scheme, which the institute has been pondering, according to the headmaster of the Clyd? Quay School, for many years, is put forward as a sure means of removing two great grievances suffered by the teachers which are also great weaknesses in.the present system. The first grievance is the fact'that the presont mode of appointing teachers almost makes it obligatory upon a teacher desirous of improving his position to take to canvassing and "cadging." The majority of the teachers are naturally unwilling or unable to adopt this means of securing advancement, which obviously militates against reward according to merit. The second grievance is thus stated by Mr. Flamank, the president of the institute, in a letter to a southern newspaper:

At present there are 13 education districts in the Dominion, and in the majority of the districts there appears to be no definite scheme for the promotion of teacher?, and even when grading schemes arc in force they are necessarily confined to the, teachers of that district only. Jn the' larger districts the need of a Dominion scheme is not so keenly felt; but in tho smaller ones the number of even mod-erately-sized schools is so few that once a teacher becomes settled in one of these districts there is absolutely no possibility of promotion for the rank and file, no matter hoiv desirous the board may ue uf promoting them. What is the result? The children of those districts are at a disadvantage because our best teachers naturally hesitate before-seeking appointments where such conditions prevail. The remedy contemplated by the institute is the substitution of four large education districts for the existing thirteen. All the teachers would .be classified, and, to quote Mr. Grundy, "under a system of coordination between the boards, each teacher would be given so many marks for service, personality (there was a good deal in that), educational attainments, and so on by the inspectors, and every year the inspectors would meet with a special Promotion Board, who would review the whole of the teachers and place them on a roll which would be used for the purposes of promotion in which merit would have a fair chance of asserting itself." With the reahty of the grievances, and the necessity for some change, most people will agree, but we are not convinced that the institute's scheme might not ultimately—for it would not step just where its promoters contemplate—have some very undesirable results. The Auckland Education Board has already adopted a grading scheme for rjroraotion purposes, and it is working very well. But the' institute desires to.| open a way of escape for the-teachers in the smaller education districts, and so it turns to the idea of centralisation. The ideal is a very good one, but centralisation is a thing that thoughtful people everywhere regard with misgiving. We can conceive ■ that the institute's scheme would end in the national roster of teachers coming directly under the management of the Minister for Education, and so under the shadow of political influence. Faulty as the existing system may be, it at any rate has the merit of keeping the teachers, a very numerous body of public servants, beyond the reach of the patronage-loving Government. One result is that the teachers enjoy an infinitely greater political freedom than is possible to the members of the Civil Service or any other State employees. Another result is that the Government is not unwilling, as Mr. Fowlds has indicated, to transfer tho control of education to the local authorities. If the teachers could bo operated upon through the usualmethods for political purposes, we should never haw. heard of Mr. Fowlds's proposal; but as matters stand, the Government is disinclined to continue tho responsibility for administering a public Service that offers so little opportunity for manipulation in the interests of the party in power. It is unnecessary to remind the teachers, but the public, may have less perfectly remembered, that Mn. Fovlds's conduct in connection with the improved salary scale illustrates this point. .The improved salaries were reluctantly granted by the Government under the pressuro of public sentiment, and Mr. Fowlds snowed how very little the Government can count, under present conditions, upon the teachers' vote, by subsequently attempting to interpret the law so as to rob the teachers of the now benefits which were provided by the Act, which were expressly intended ,by Parliament, and ' which every member of the House who spoke about it declared to bo the benefits he understood were being provided. In their contemplation of the 'undoubted advantages contained in its scheme, if the scheme could be kept from contact with political influence, the institute should not overlook the political possibilities of the situation.