CENTRALISATION IN EDUCATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18234, 2 May 1921, Page 6

CENTRALISATION IN EDUCATION

TECHNICAL SCHOOL BOARDS’ PROTEST. ' REPLY BY THE MINISTER. \ (Fbou Oub Own Cobbbspowdert.) WELLINGTON, April 30. Last week the Dunedin Technical School 'Board expressed dissatisfaction with the re'gulutions for the classification and payment of teachers in technical schools, stating I that the regulations were clear evidence of a departmental tendency to centralise every- . thing in Wellington. The board gave expression to a fear that this new departmental interference would kill local interest and support. The Hon. 0. J. Parr Minister of Education, referring to this attitude to-day, said: “I have never heard a more thoughtless or unwarranted complaint. What are these regulations which have roused the ire and fears of the Dunedin Board ? They are quite simple and absolutely necessary. They 'put the employment and the classification and salaries of technical school teachers for the first time on a proper footing, and effect reforms long overdue. Hitherto there have been nearly 50 separate technical institutions in the dominion. Most of these were under local boards of managers, as is the case of Dunedin and Christchurch. The salaries of some hundreds of teachers in these technical schools were, until recently, paid by means of a capitation grunt made to the boards. Everyone now admits this was a most enmberous and unsatisfactory system. r lhe local , boards fixed the salaries for the teachers, and made appointments, but the teachers were not classified according, to capacity, or anything else, and were appointed in the most haphazard fashion. Each board was a law unto itself. For instance, one board engaged a capable teacher at £250, while another board paid ■for the same work £360 per annum. Fair promotion was impossible, because there was no kind of basis for it. When I took office the whole teaching service was seething with discontent, because of this utter lack of system. Twenty years ago the same conditions existed in the primary • schools, where 13 education hoards paid d’fferent salaries, and promoted teachers according to the unintelligent appreciation of their work by board laymen. Th e Legislature, as far back as 1901, this haphazard system in favour of a dominion scale of salaries, and more recently of a dominion classification for promotion. These new technical school regulations, which frighten the Dunedin board, effect precisely the same reforms in the technical schools as we have already accomplished in the primary schools, and also last year in the secondary schools for the first time, the •technical school teachers are classified according to teaching ability and academic attainments. Further, the regulations provide for a uniform scheme of salaries throughout the dominion, involving in most cases a notable increase in the remuneration formerly paid. This increase the Government pays. The teachers are now all better off, and more contented. Recently technical teachers at their conference' passed a resolution of appreciation and thanks for these regulations, though, ; naturally? they would like a little more Pay: than we have given them. Further, the hoard itself has now an assured finance under the regulations. No one. except, perhaps, the Dunedin hoard, would care to go hack to the old condition of things. The technical rchnols are of little use unless they are efficiently staffed, and have proner classification and '-romotion. This is what the' regulations effect. The local hoards • still make the appointments. Under these ; circumstances it is difficult to see where the centralisation bogey comes in/ Tn any . event, these reforms are overdue, and can only be accomplished in this manner.”