TRAINING OF TEACHERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19289, 30 March 1926, Page 10

TRAINING OF TEACHERS.

The Education Department's new policy for the training of teachers makes some notable changes. The pupil teacher of the old order is finally eliminated; the trainee, received as a probationer, is to have a year in actual teaching, then two years at a training college, this period to be reducible in special instances to one year; and a further year as a probationary assistant under a headmaster is to complete the qualification for a certificate. The system recently prevailing has provided for two years' practical teaching as a preliminary to two years in a training college, the certificate to follow immediately the course in the college. Both systems presuppose that the probationary stage is real; the teacher, that is, does not actually enter the full and regular service of the department until some measure of aptitude and efficiency is proved. The change made by the new policy shortens the preliminary practical test of the probationer's desire and fitness, throws forward the college training accordingly, and makes the final year one of close surveillance by an experienced senior. This alteration has certainly something in its favour, especially in the use made of the last probationary year, for it adds a test of fitness lacking in the former method. Nevertheless, the utility of this last year depends upon the kind of school and the kind of headmaster concerned in it, a dependence upon factors likely to prove variable and so furnishing conditions prejudicial to the standardising of tests. Until a few years of the new system have passed, it will be impossible therefore to judge its merits fairly. Should experience prove this last year to be as useful as is hoped, then its substitution for a second year without close supervision must be accounted a gain in training. It would be interesting to know whether the alternative of beginning the probationary course with two years in the college, and finalising it with two years of practical experience, one of them under a headmaster and the other in a soleteacher school under the eyes of the inspectorate only, has been considered. That would make for better teaching from the outset of practical work, to the advantage of both pupils and teachers, and allow of more continuity in the probationary period. It would give some reliable test of aptitude, quite as good, although in a different way, as the trying of the 'prentice hand at once upon the task without any preliminary training at all. In any event, the method now to obtain is an experiment, and should be watched closely as such.