AGRICULTURE INSTRUCTORS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVIII, Issue 185, 5 July 1928, Page 2

AGRICULTURE INSTRUCTORS.

GILBERTIAN,SITUATION. FURTHER ACTION LIKELY. WELLINGTON, July 3. Further action is likely in. the case of the organisation of agricultural instruction in the Dominion following the disclosures made :by Mr T. B. Strong, Director of Education. The position of agricultural instructors is a curious one, aijd an inheritance from the days when a capitation fee was paid to education boards on manual instruction given in their districts. Out of that money, from the capitation fee the hoards paid the salary of the agricultural instructors, but when tire' capitation system was abolished for educational purposes the responsibility for payment of the instructors passed to.the department, but the men did not come under its control. The consequence has been that the instructors are’ not' allotted equally to the various.districts. Auckland,' with 65,000 pupils, Taranaki with. 12,000, and Wanganui with 17,000 each 'has three instructors. "• The boards have refused to consent to any rearrangement of the instructors so that the Department’s desire for greater efficiency may be served. A Gilbertian side of the affair is that the boards are notable to appoint/ an instructor without .the approval of the department, but having obtained their instructors are determined to keep' them. ' The position could be met by tire appointment of further instructors for the. understaffed districts, but this, in the interests of economy, the department refuses to do.

The “instructors” are really inspectors of agricultural education. The training colleges now give courses in agricliltural teaching and" the functions of the “instructors” is to supervise this teaching, to give advice, and to act as liaison officers between the department and the farming community. One side of their activity has been to induce farmers to co-operate with the department to allow a certain amount of experimental work to be carried out in schools. This, it iz stated, has proved very valuable.