APPRENTICES IN TEACHING.

Otago Witness, Issue 2808, 8 January 1908, Page 37

APPRENTICES IN TEACHING.

The large dimensions attained by the " apprentice " element in the staffing of the State schools was dwelt upon by some of the speakers at the Educational Institute meeting. Mr S. C. Owen, of the North Canterbury Institute, in moving a resolution affirming the desirableness of more adequate staffing of the schools, said that many of the schools were being worked by staffs composed of half or more than half " appendices." In the various trades the proportion of apprentices to journeymen was limited by the Arbitration Court, but in regard to the schools there was no such provision for limitation. There was, he said, too great a tendency to leave the work of instructing scholars to pupil teachers. Personally, he said, amid a chorus of "Hear, hears," he did not think pupil teachers should be counted on the staff at all. "They are practically useless," he said, " for the first eayr or two, and the only time they get useful is -about the time they leave to go to a training college." A/ strict limit, he said, should be placed upon the proportion of pupil teachers. Mr F. J. Ohlson, an Auckland delegate, in endorsing Mr Owen's remarks, said that very often pupil teachers were placed in charge of classes. In his own. school there had been cases in which pupil teachers with some experience had been" taken away and their places filled by other 3 with no experience, and yet these latter in some oases had to take charge of classes.

At the time of the motor reliability trial an Oamaru citizen, who was interested" in learning all about the cost of running motor cars, asked the owner of one of the largest cars the cost of upkeep during the period of running, and the answer was that, reckoning into the expenses the wages of a chaffeur, etc., the cost in travelling was about & per ''mil*.