CONFERENCE OF SCHOOL INSPECTORS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11564, 30 January 1901, Page 6

CONFERENCE OF SCHOOL INSPECTORS.

ADDRESS "BY THE INSPECTOR- I GENERAL. | [BY TELEGRAPH.TRESS ASSOCIATION.] | Wellington, Tuesday. g The School Inspectors' Conference resumed I to-day. .■; ■ I

Mr. G. Hogben, Inspector-General of Schools, in an address, said the Minister lor Education would be glad to have the opinions of the inspectors on any matters calling for attention or reform in educational affairs. The question of a colonial scale of staff p.nd salaries would form the subject of discussion at a later conference. As regards the ? objects of discussion, the syllabus now exising seemed to require amendment in regard to the amount of work required from the children at various stages, to the arrangement of such work, to the method of treatment of various subjects, and to the want of substantial differentiation between work in the large and in small schools. Any attempt to remodel the syllabus must be influenced by the view of the individual standard p«s, and there would be an element of uncertainty about it if, in addition to varying the standards of interpretation in different districts, there were added the fact that a child in a country school could pass a given, standard with one or two subjects less than a child in a town school. He had -no sympathy with any desire to lessen the amount of reading required. He should invite the conference to consider how it was possible to increase, rather than diminish, the amount of reading. Arithmetic might be curtailed and modified, and when the Anglo-Saxon so far woke up as to adopt the decimal money system and metric system of weights and measures, we should absolutely gain three or four hours a week in every school, and probably twice as much in every counting-house. All would agree that the pupil-teachers' regulations, so far as they led up to teachers' certificates, should be as nearly as possible the same al! over the colony. The question of scholarship regulations could hardly be considered apart from the whole question of the link between secondary and primary education. question of teachers' certificates brought up the question of teachers' examinations, and marks awarded for efficiency. Eaofe training college should have model schools in connection with it, whore students should practice every day under close supervision. The directors should bo lecturers in psychology and history, of education, and have full control. With regard to the co-ordination -of primary and secondary education, the present system only partly and roughly solved the question. As there was no limit to the-mmi-ber of free places for which an extra £\ per annum would be paid, there was no reason why all district high school education should not be free if it were expedient to make it so. The Minister was inclined to favour the establishment of district high schools rather than of high schools too small to bo stable either in staff or numbers of pupils. » In large towns that possess fullyequipped high schools, those who had passed Standard VI., and were ready to continue their school course for only a year, might be dealt with in a seventh standard, but with those. that were ready to stay two or three years the case was different. To pro- ; vide for free secondary education in primary \ schools would cripple the high schools, yet j without such free secondary education they i had to fate high school fees. In short, should district high schools be established in towns where fully-equipped high schools exist, or was secondary education to be given in standard VII? The address concluded with a statement on the authority of the Minister that a new School Amendment Act Bill would be introduced next session. It wm proposed to raise the age of exemption lo 14. It was resolved that, in the opinion of members of the conference, it is desirable that the individual recorded pass in standards I. H.. 111., IV., and V. be abolished ; that the Minister bo asked to curtail the syllabus of instruction, so as to allow . of sufficient time, a week being devoted in all schools to the teaching of the fundamental subjects of the syllabus; that the curtailment required might be secured (a) by making the geography course shorter and more precise; (b) by making history a reading subject only, and no longer liable to special examination;' (c) by rearranging the course of instruction in. arithmetic, omitting altogether the study of the metric system of weights and measures, discount and present worth, stocks, and compound interest. That the number of class subjects may be reduced in the country by allowing teachers to leave out at the discretion of, the inspectors one or more subjects that the syllabus in composition bo modified, and from standard 11. to IV. a better graduated scheme of work be adopted; that only so much grammar as is necessary to give rational comprehension of the principle of composition be taught; that in classes receiving instruction in the subject grammar be included in subjects forming the basis of promotion. The , motion on the question of grammar was -under discussion when the conference adjourned.