TEACHERS’ CONFERENCES

Evening Star, Issue 21716, 10 May 1934, Page 14

TEACHERS’ CONFERENCES

SECONDARY SCHOOL HEADS [Per United Press Association,] WELLINGTON, May 9. Addressing the annual meeting of the Association of Heads of Registered Secondary Schools of New Zealand, the president (Mr A. K. Anderson, head master of St. Andrew’s College, Christchurch) said that it was with some personal pleasure that the association noted the institution of, the school certificate because such a certificate had been consistently advocated by it. He was certain that, while some adjustments in the examination and the award of the certificate might have to be made (for example, the bracketing of certain technical subjects and the fee of 2gs were criticised), the establishment of the school certificate was a real educational reform which recognised the two broad groups of secondary pupils—those who were fitted for university studies and those whose school studies were a preparation for non-academic callings. Mr Anderson added that he believed that- the extension of the secondary course to five years for entrance to the university was advisable. One of the urgent -needs in the educational world at present was the close collaboration of university professors, examiners, and teachers of examinees. The conference adopted a motion regretting the resignation of Mr Anderson as president, and congratulating him on his appointment as principal of Scots College, Sydney. Mr R. J. Richards, head master of Christ’s College, was elected to succeed Mr Anderson as president, and Mrs C. L. Young, principal of St. Margaret’s College, Christchurch, was elected secretary and treasurer. The conference adopted _ resolutions urging a liaison between university professors and teachers in charge,of special subjects in schools; recommending to the University Senate and the Education Department that an entrance board which would be representative of all the educational bodies concerned bo constituted a governing body for regulating the syllabus, etc., for the entrance and . school certificate examinations; and expressing pleasure that about 100,000 electors have endorsed suggestions made by the heads of the Auckland secondary schools with a view to raising the standard of the film censorship. TECHNICAL ' TEACHERS. Discussing the question of the relationship of the technical colleges to the university, Mr W. S. La Trobe, Superintendent of Technical Education, in an address to the technical teachers’ conference, expressed his personal view that the university should only provide courses in definitely professional occupations and in its own special domain of advancement of learning, and should insist on the residence and fulltime attendance of students at their own colleges. All other training of a lower or more directly practical character should be left to the local, technical, combined, and secondary schools with a proviso that in the centres where there is a constituent college which does not provide a professional course in any particular occupation, the local technical college, if it provides a course for that occupation and is staffed and equipped to the satisfaction of the university authorities, should be affiliated to the local constituent college for the purposes of, say, the lower professional examinations of the university course.