HOME LESSONS.

Southland Times, Issue 19477, 29 March 1922, Page 2

HOME LESSONS.

To the Editor. Sir,—lt is quite time that steps were taken to fix the number of home leatons allowed to be given to Standard VI. children. Some children have to do, nearly every night, work which occupies from three to four hours. Their mates in other schools have only a few lessons and the teachers get just as good a pass. Where many home lessons have to be given, it surely shows the teachers are incompetent and should be made to learn their jobs as well as those who need to give only a few home lessons. Four hours is half a work-ing-man's day—school time is five or six hours. Add the keeping-in time that some teachers practise year after year, and it is plain that some youngsters get a much longer working day than a grown-up. They then get into trouble at the High School, because they are too tired to keep up with their mates from other schools who are fresh when they leave Standard VI. Is this right? If teachers are so incompetent that they need to make the children work so long, they should not hold their positions. It is a farce having an Education Board and school inspectors if these abuses are allowed and if those teachers who are unskilled can be a law unto themselves. It is quite time that the Education Board awoke and considered such important things and those teachers who take the law into their own hands should be severely dealt with. —I am, etc., ANTI HOME LESSONS.