GRADING OF TEACHERS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18235, 2 November 1933, Page 12

GRADING OF TEACHERS

FAULTS IN THE SYSTEM SUGGESTED IMPROVEMENTS A suggested rearrangement of the method of grading teachers so as to overcome the “grading bar," was outlined by Mr. .T. Caughley, formerly Director of Education, at a meeting of the Auckland branch of the New Zealand Educational Institute. Mr. Caughley said the declining attendances at schools, and especially the exclusion of children under six years of age, were partly responsible for the slowness of promotion, but the grading “bar" that had arisen at the head of each grading group was also partly responsible. When the grading scheme had been drawn up during his term of oliice, it was intended that when a teacher neared the top of his group, a position would become available for him in a higher group. In practice it had been found that numbers of teachers neared the top of the group and were unable to find a vacancy at a higher grade Regulations had been drawn up to overcome this, whereby a teacher who had held the maximum marks in one group for two years, and was unable to obtain a higher position, could nevertheless be transferred to the higher group. This regulation had been found to be too difficult, as the teacher was required to hold maximum marks in every branch of his grading during those two years. Mr. Caughley's suggestions were designed to overcome this difficulty. If they were adopted, a teacher could be transferred to a higher group for the purposes of eac-h branch of teaching immediately he reached the maximum marks in a lower group. • He could thus be accumulating marks in the higher group, and could add to his grading, whereas at present he was debarred from improving his position until he was transferred to the higher group in all sections.