EDUCATIONAL REORGANISATION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20689, 11 April 1929, Page 10

EDUCATIONAL REORGANISATION.

SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS. CRITICISM BY MR A. G. BUTCHERS. (Special to Dailt Times.) INVERCARGILL, April 10. Mr A. G. Butchers, author of the. pamphlet "After Standard IV, What?" replies in an interview to the criticism of Mr John Stewart, of Marlborough College. He said that the first essential in the controversy upon educational reorganisation was the maintenance of a calm and judicial attitude of mind. There was no necessity to become excited or to talk in an undignified manner about “ Giving the lie direct ” to criticism offered in good faith and supported oy the weight of evidence of experts, such as Mr Frank Tate. In regard to Mr Stewart’s reported statement that it is not true that secondary teachers are untrained, Mr Butchers called the attention of our representative to the 1924 report of the chief inspector of secondary schools of New Zealand, which read; “ The lack of training among secondary school teachers has become almost a byword." Mr Tate, in his report to the New Zealand Education Department in 1025, also said that “ a system of training for secondary teachers is urgently, needed,” and that “ New Zealand has not developed any system of training technical school teachers.” The majority report of the Syllabus Revision Committee in 1928 said that “ no proper provision exists for the training of postprimary teachers.” “ In face of all this evidence,” said Mr Butchers, “ how can Mr Stewart maintain that the secondary teachers are nrofessionally trained? Mr Tate, indeed, goes further end says unequivocally that ‘ the aim of the junior high schools cannot be realised until there .is a revolutionary change in the training of the post-primary teachers, and until a new method and a new spirit are In evidence in the schools.’ What has Mr Stewart to say in reply to that? Finally, if the Junior high schools arc staffed entirely with ‘ highly graded, highly efficient primary teachers,’ as Mr Stewart alleges, then why not leave both the pupils and the teachers of Standards V and VI where they are within the admittedly efficient primary organisation? The new enriched syllabus provides the key to the solution. Why break the continuity of their education by compulsorily transferring both pupils and teachers at great expense to become an appendage of a secondary system, which is equally admittedly in urgent need of a thorough reorganisation?” In conclusion, Mr Butchers said that too little attention had been paid to Mr Tate’s report, which was constructive as well as devastating in its criticisms, and both educationally and economically was sound in its practical recommendations.