INSPECTION OF SECONDARY SCHOOLS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CI, Issue 11889, 12 May 1899, Page 4

INSPECTION OF SECONDARY SCHOOLS.

The reaoliition. passed at a meeting of the Tiraaru High School Board the other day tvith reference to the itispectioh and examination Of Secondary schools, should direct public attention to a question of more than Ordinary interest and importance. The Hoard Urged the ap|Mntment Of inspectors for secondary schools, to he controlled by the Education Department; and suggested that the vaiibus governing bddies should be supplied with copies of all reports, with a view to facilitating! comparisons between the different institutions. Under the present system, the inspection of secondary schools is a duty devolving on the InspectorGerierai himself, ahd his reports have been prepared and dealt with much as all other departmental reports. So far as we can gather, no suggestions or recommendations, other than 'those which might be made to the principal Of the school on the occasion of the inspector’s annual visit, have ever been transmitted to the gdverniiig bodies as the result of these inspections. It docs not, however, seem to ns tboA/ this is ti necessary or even a direct result of the system. It appeal's to be largely due to the practice of the Inspector-Generali; and it must be borne iri miiid that the late Inspector, owing to hiAregrfettably weak state of litertlth; had not been able to discharge the duties of the office for some time before his death with that vigour ahd enthusiasm which marked his earlier work. We may hope that the new Inspector will make his annual inspection of the secondary schools’ a much less perfunctory affair.lt is. however, perfectly t-nie that tlii; nliukgehil'nt of the high Schools of the colony might be systematised with considerable benefit to both teachers and pupills.

Each controlling Board, under the present arrangement, provides for an annual examination of the children. Reports are presented and published; but, as a member of the Timaru Board truly observed, tbe exami-' nations are isolated tests, and each school stands, as it were, entirely-on its own plane. Except whore, as in our own city, the same examiners are engaged for two schools under one Board, there is little or no comparison between the methods and results of the schools. And there is, we believe, practically no exchange of ideas between the teachers in the various- centres. But we are not sure that to achieve the results desired in these directions it-is necessary toadopt the plan suggested by the Timaru Board. It would be unwise, we think, to resort to any methods which would be calculated to prescribe narrow 1 limits within which our secondary schools should work,, and the agitation, against the individual pass system in the primary schools ought to have shown the Timaru Board that the trend of popular opinion is now rather against conformity to arbitrary standards in the matter of education. The examinations which the teachers themselves conduct, and the observations which-they make from day to-day, are the best guides that they can have in dealing with tKedr pupils. If the annual report of the Inspector-General were supplied to the different Boards, and a System of exchange of-examinaition papers-arranged, there would be quite enough material to enable them to compare the working of their own schools with those in different parts of the colony.