TEACHERS' INSTITUTE

Evening Post, Volume CC, Issue 5, 6 January 1921, Page 7

TEACHERS' INSTITUTE

REPORT FOR PAST YEAR

A very full and active year was recorded by the executive of the New Zealand Educational Institute in it's report for 1920 to the annual'meeting last evening. The membership has now reached the total of 4000, alid the invested' funds iimount to £11840 12a 9d, while the Provident Fund has £2424 4s 7d to its credit. The chief features^ of the legisr lation of the year were : (a) The decision to raise the school age; (b) tho putting of appointments on a, just basis; (c) the extension of the grading, system and a. Dominion scale of salaries to secondary and technical teachers; (d.) the rescinding of the permission to hold national scholarships in private schools; (c)» the granting of some relief . to those who had retired on very small annuities; (fl much-needed increase in allowance, to school committees.

"The change in'the law regarding, appointments .nay justly be accepted as an occasion for general satisfaction, among teachers/ stated the report. 'Thequea"tion 1 of adopting the graded jist as a Dominion basis of appointments was twice referred to individual teachers, and on ( each occasion the response was an overwhelming confirmation of the institute's many-years old demand for a Dominion scheme of appointment 6. The long-desir-ed measure is at last on the statute-book, and one of the most objectionable features of the education service, and one of the worst hindrances to educational 'progress, • will soon be a thing of the past. The benefit of the amendment is to be shared in uy r.ur fellow-teachers in the secondary and tecl nical schools, and it is not too much to anticipate that this brings appreciably nearer'the day when there > will be a single teaching serviceworking on a single co-ordinated scheme. Equal satisfaction will' welcome the ■withdrawal of State support which private scjiools ha.ye enjoyed through the holding of scholarships. Anything that tends to assist in the- segregation of the nation's children into separate folds hinders the growth, of a truly national spirit; and the retracing of the false step taken six years ago is therefore a matter for congratulation." The institute's official organ, National Education, had experienced a year of progress, expansion, and, it is believed, usefulness. Owing to the increasing cost of everything connected with the production of the paper, the executive was obliged to ask the institute to make financial provision for meeting the altered circumstances.

In conclusion, the executive expressed the opinion that, given resolute yet restrained vigour in- action, the members of the institute might look forward to very marked educational progress in the rear future.