The Opunake Times. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1895. SCHOOL EXAMINATIONS.

Opunake Times, Volume II, Issue 67, 22 February 1895, Page 2

The Opunake Times. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1895. SCHOOL EXAMINATIONS.

There is at present a very wordy war taking place over the Inspector’s report on the last examination of the Hawera School. The report of the Inspectors was unfavorable, as the results were considered to be below' the standard which the Hawera School usually attained. On the schedules containing the names of the children examined certain remarks are written by the Inspector pointing out defects in teaching method and other shortcomings. These remarks are appended for the guidance of teachers and are intended by the Inspectors to be regarded as confidential documents. As such they should be considered by the School Committee in committee, and by that means their publication in the press would be prevented. That such is the intention of the Board of Education, also, is shown by the fact that the Board always goes into committee to consider the Inspector’s reports on examinations, and all that is made public is the Board’s decision. Committees, we hold, should treat the reports in the same manner, and the Board, recognising that committees had abused their powers, made a regulation by which reports were to be sent to the head teacher direct to be filed by him with the school records, thus preventing them being hawked round from bouse to house as was often done. We are of opinion that the report should consist of two parts: one to contain the schedule of passes and failures and the Inspector’s general remarks on the progress or otherwise of the school for the committee, and the same to be published for the information of the parents; and the other to contain remarks on school management and hints to teachers to be sent to the head teacher for the guidance and information of the staff. With regard to the differences which at present exist we cannot see how T the Board of Education could have acted otherwise than it has. It had the Inspector’s reports before it showing unsatisfactory results. It also had the documentary evidence of the results of the examinations in its office. Previously the school unchr similar trials had produced satisfactory results, and therefore it was very reasonable to arrive at the judgment that the fault lay in the teaching. The head teacher, in his complaint that the standard requirements were higher in the Wanganui district than in other districts, pays a very high compliment to the Inspectors, the children, and other teachers in the district who have been able to uniformily produce good results under the system, and condemns himself as incapable of keeping up the high standard for which the Hawera School has been so noted for years. Teachers who have nut been perfection, but who have produced satisfactory results, have felt stung by little faults and failings being noted on the schedules which permitted of an erroneous interpretation when in the hands of nonprofessional men. This feeling, however, would be completely allayed were the suggestion adopted of making such remarks, &0., confidential to the teachers. When a teacher comes to take up duties in a new district he should be prepared to conform to the regulations he finds in existence, but it is highly absurd for him to expect that the whole system in the district is to be altered so as to convert his mediocre results into satisfactory.