SOUTHLAND EDUCATION BOARD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14465, 6 March 1909, Page 10

SOUTHLAND EDUCATION BOARD

MONTHLY MEETING. (From Ouk Own- Conar.seoxiiF.xT.) INVERCAP.GILL, March 5. At its meeting to-day the Southland Education Board made the following appointments :—Merrivale, James Cusack, sole teacher; Waikaia, Bertha Clnpp, temporary mistress; Invercargill South, Irene Murray, ninth assistant; Lumsden, Minnie Lenihan, temporary mistress till a permanent appointment can be made; The Neck (Stewart Island), Rebecca Spencer, temporary sole teacher; Gore, Jessie R. Miller, sixth assistant; Woodlands, Robert Eraser, acting head teacher till a permanent appointment can be made; Charlton Jessie Nicoll, acting sole teacher till a permanent appointment can be made; Invercargill Middle—(l) Monica M'Hutcheson, pupil "teacher (third year; (2) Helen M. Howie, pupil teacher (second year). .Invercargill South—(l) John M. Burt, pupil teacher; (2) Olive Sproat. pupil teacher (third year); North Invercargill, Elizabeth Fraser, pupil teacher (third year); Gore, Violet Hamilton, pupil teacher (second year); Mataura, Elizabeth Winning, pupil teacher (second year); Winton. Mary Gallagher, pupil teacher (second year); Riversdale, Ada 1. J. Barber, pupil teacher (second year); Lumsden, Lillian Milligan, pupil teacher (third year); Arrowtown, Violet Youngman, temporary mistress; Glencoe, Leoine Simon, temporary sole teacher; Waikouro, George M. Hassing, acting sole teacher till a permanent appointment can be made. TECHNICAL EDUCATION. The Report of the Technical Committee 011 the extension of cookery and woodwork classes to country centres was adopted. Mr Fisher strongly opposed the adoption of the scheme as being of doubtful benefit to country children. He said that cookery school certificates were not worth the paper they were written on, as in 90 households out of 100 there were not the appliances which the girls were taught to use at the cookery school. He would rather see some scheme by which tho mothers undertook the teaching of cookery to their own girls, and made a declaration lo the board of the number of lessons given them annually. A person appointed by the board could examine the girls once a year at a central examination, and give certificates that would have practical value.

Messrs Gilchrist and Anderson, while sympathising to some extent with Mr Fisher's view of the cookery classes, supported the scheme as the foundation of a general extension to country schools of technical education, to which agricultural science would later be added.

Mr Anderson expressed a desire to see the high school about to be erected at Gore equipped to specialise in agricultural and dairy science, so that the equipment, could be made available to the primary technical scholars. He agreed with Mr Gilchrist that such a course of technical instruction would be of great practical value lo country children, and would further, by exemplifying the importance and the real scientific nature of funning, tend lo divert the stream of country children that was at present flowing towards the industrial town centres. They contended that if the real dignity of proper farming 'could be made clear to young lads the craving for town life would be allayed.

Mr J. C. Thomson said lie thought that presently lectures on live stock could be added to the technical classes. It was agreed that the scheme was an experiment., but that in view of its possibilities for extension it should be given a fair trial. (The scope of the scheme was outlined in the reports of the last meeting.) GORE HIGH SCHOOL. On the motion of Mr Anderson it was decided that clause 6 of the. hoard's scholarship regulations he altered to make it mandatory that every holder of a hoard's scholarship shall attend the High School in the Southland district nearest (he scholar's place of residence. The effect of this will he that scholarship winners within a radius of Edendale and Riversdale will have to attend the Gore. High School. ' This will tend to raise the Gore school's attendance, and therefore cause si strengthening of the teaching staff, and consequently a rise in the status of the school. 'Another effect will be that pupils within the radius mentioned having suitable trains wril travel between home and school daily, and will receive a £5 scholarship allowance instead of the £30 allowance where a scholar has to reside all week away from home. This will leave a large proportion of scholarship money available, and consequently more scholarships will be allotted.