EDUCATIONAL DIFFICULTIES.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXIX, Issue LXIX, 28 May 1915, Page 4

EDUCATIONAL DIFFICULTIES.

In the annual report-of the chairman of the Wanganui Education Board (Mr Pirani), he brings out one or two matters for consideration to which we think prominence should be giveni He said: "Referring to the general educa-tional-outlook-in the Wanganui district, we have still to deplore the fa^ct that most of our remote schools are manned by raw recruits, who cannot help doing -a good deal of harm before their services become at all efficient. As a matter of fact, most of the teachers, willing though they undoubtedly are, represent for the time being a dead loss to the country, and what is still worse they frequently desert us just when they have become worth their salary. The Education Department could easily help us in this difficulty by instituting at training colleges a system of short courses for candidates for entry to the teaching profession, who are too old or lack the qualifications' necessary to enter as pupil teachers or probationers. Whatever the plan adopted, something should certainly be done to enable boards to find better teachers for .the back-blocks schools. The plan of raising the salaries in the hope of attracting better applicants has not proved entirely effective, for the real trouble is that the supply of trained teachers is not equal to the demand. For years we have looked to the Education Department to grapple effectively with this difficulty, but in vain; and go we find our inspectors in their report for the year 1914 saying that no less than 50 schools were more or less inefficient, and that most of those were back-block schools. With regard to the provision of facilities for vocational education, we know our district is in the forefront; 'but to maintain this position our financial resources are strained to breaking point. Instead of tramelling boards the Department would be well advised to give them greater freedom to develop education according to the special needs of the several districts. To givo one specific instance: Our inspectors have urged that for girls a vocational course in the home arts is infinitely to be preferred to a course of agriculture; but we cannot afford to allow girls to drop the latter subject, simply on account of the loss of capitation that would result. As it is even with every available pupil pressed into service as a capitation-earning unit, we fail to make both ends meet. Another problem that faces us is the question of providing educational facilities for the pioneers of settlement in the almost unroaded back country. In "our district, as doubtless in other parts of the North Island, there must be a large number of children growing up without even the rudiments of a primary school education. We are prepared to find a solution to this problem, but certainly not if we are bound by the provisions of the present Education Act. The present allowance of £6 per pupil, or even the teachers' Grade I salary, is entirely inadequate for our purposes. No teacher of however robust constitution could be induced to undertake the work we have in view for him in the most remote parts of our district unless a salary is paid that will compensate for the discomforts, not to say the danger, encountered in travelling from house to house, along lonely bush tracks." j

If £1000 were placed at the disposal of the British Government it would meet the expenses of war on land and sco, and of tmons in training, for one" mm .».o and a-half. J