APPOINTMENT OF TEACHERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15610, 15 May 1914, Page 4

APPOINTMENT OF TEACHERS.

EVIL OF CANVASSING.

! "It is common knowledge— know ! it to their sorrow, committees know it, and education hoards know it—that the applicant who can pull most strings, and who' is prepared to stoop to canvass and to throw his own dignity to the winds is the teacher who climbs the ladder most readily to-day, while many a more deserving teacher who is too proud to do any of these things is left at the bottom, or very near it." said Mr. G. Flux, headmaster of the South Wellington school, in his annual report to the householders last week. "Presently, possibly, he too succumbs, and the profession is by so much the poorer, There is no personal application to my own committee in what I have said, but I would appeal to them, to-night to throw their weiglit on the side of justice' to teachers, by passing a self-denying ordinance divesting themselves of the httlo bit of patronage the present law affords them. I could wish they, or, better still, this meeting, would petition the Minister for Education to include this reform in the amendment of the Education Act promised for next year. Personally, all things considered, 1 believe in a centralised system of appointment. It has its disadvantages I know. We get no system that is perfect but it cannot well be worse, and might' easily bo worse than the present anomalous system, in which responsibility for a had appointment can be sheeted home to no person or body of persons. Appointments are purely a lottery at present." ■ The headmaster's report was adopted, and the meeting carried a resolution that the section of Mr. Flux's report 'referring to the appointment of teachers be forwarded to the Minister for Education.