TRAINING OF TEACHERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22392, 13 October 1934, Page 9

TRAINING OF TEACHERS

DUNEDIN AND WELLINGTON STUDENTS MINISTER'S REPLY TO REPRESENTATIONS (Fkou Our Parliamentart Reporter) WELLINGTON, October 12. The position of Dunedin and Wellington student teachers who will have to attend the Training Colleges at Christchurch and Auckland next year was the subject of representations made to the Minister of Education (Mr R. Masters) recently by Mr Jones. Mr Jones mentioned the possibility of having students trained as teachers in the four university colleges, and pointed to the disadvantages that Dunedin and Wellington students would suffer in living away from their homes. All they were to receive was a £2O bursary and a loan of £4O a year. This sum, it was contended, was not sufficient to live on. Moreover, at the end of their training, these students would be faced with a liability in having to repay the loan money. .Students living in Christchurch and Auckland were able to live with their parents. They received the £2O bursary and had no accumulating liability. The Minister, in his reply to Mr Jones, says he had given careful consideration to the scheme of university training lor teachers. He had come to the conclusibn that what was proposed by the professors of education would not give as good training, especially in non-univer-sity subjects, as that given by the existing staffs of the Christchurch and Auckland Training Colleges. Mr Jones had referred to the London County Council handing over its Training College to the University of London. Mr Masters states that the only change that had taken place in London was in the matter of control, the college now being controlled as an institute of education by the university instead of as a training college by the County Council. " What you say in regard to students from Dunedin being placed at a disadvantage as compared with students living in Christchurch," the Minister adds, " applied when there were four colleges to students whose homes were in education districts where there was no university college. . Further, if teacher training were handed over to the university colleges, Otago students whose homes were not in Dunedin would be in the same position as they are now in regard to the £4O loan for lodging allowance."