SCHOOL TEACHERS.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2651, 30 October 1906, Page 5

SCHOOL TEACHERS.

The difficulty experienced in efficiciontly manning the public schools of the colony with qualified teachers is becoming more and more pronounced. The Otago Education Board, some time ago, had the matter under consideration, and more recently the Hawkes Bay Board have had the same trouble facing them. The Southland Education Board has felt the pressure for a long time, and the increasing number of uncertificated teacher? who have to be appointed to country schools as head teachers, threatens to become a menace to the maintenance of the standard of instruction aimed at by the Education Department. The growing disinclination on the part of male students to take up teaching as a profession, and the iucieasing proportion of female teachers to males, accentuates the difficulty of equipping many schools in the country, which, from their situation, properly demand a male teacher. There is a constant demand, as settlement increases, for new schools, and the erection of schools in response to «uch demands is accepted by householders, that the Education Boards ar« in a position to appoint a suitable teacher to till the school when erected, ft is becoming apparent that a higher authority than the Education Boards will shortly have to take the matter in hand, and provide a remedy, viz., the Government. The machinery of the Education Department will require to be revised to cope with the trouble, if we are to maintain our standard of education. When young men, over a course of years, show a growing disinclination to enter a particular profession, it is good presumptive evidence that there is something in it which is unattractive and repugnant. The teaching profession is probably the most honourable in our land, and one that. should be greedily aspired to by those intellectually endowed; and that it is not, is matter for the gravest concern. Jl does not become a question of " Can it be remedied " —it is a question of abs6lute necessity. "It must be remedied." The success of the country in the race with other nations depends upon the intelligence and enlightenment of its people, and we cannot afford to go back. United action on the part of Education Boards may he necessary to urge upon the Government the gravity of the situation, and to take into consideration the whole question of teachers' salaries, and the encouragement to young men to enter upon the teaching profession. The isolation of young teacherß, who are appointed to country schools, and are deprived of the means of furthering their studies, and who thus become educationally dulled, should have some remedy, in the way of an arrangement by the Boards, of exchanging, at regular intervals, teachers to and from countrv to town, till such time as they have completed their course, and obtained their certificates.—' Otautau Standard.'