The School Inspectors Conference.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 11667, 30 January 1901, Page 2

The School Inspectors Conference.

MR HOGBEN'S ADDRESS. IPEK PRK^S A<WOOI »TlON. ' January 29. — The In pectors' Conference was resumed to-day. vlrHogben, Inspector-General of Schools, a his address, said the Minister o£ Eduction would be glad to have their tpinious on any matters calling for atten ion .or reform in educational affairs. The question of a colonial scale of staff and alaries would form :i subject for discusion at a later conference. As regards mbjscts of discussion, the syllabus now sxisting seemed to require amendment in •egard to the amount of work required :roa children at various stages, to the irrangement of such work, to the method )f treatment of various subjects, and to the vant of substantial differentiation between .pork in large and in small schools. Any ittempt to remove the syllabus must be nfluenced by the view of the individual itandard pass, and there would be an slementof uncertainty about it if in addition to varying standards of interpretation ia different districts, there were idded the fact that a child in a country 3 chool could pass a given standard with jne or two subjects less than a child m a town school. He had no sympathy with my desire to lessen the amount of reading required. He should invite the Conference to consider how it was possible to increase rather than diminish ' the amount of reading. Arithmetic might be curtailed and modified. "When Anglo-Saxons so far woke up as to adopt the decimal money system and "the metric system of weights .and measures, we should absolutely gain three or 'lf our hours a week in every school, and probably twice as much in every counting-house. AH would agree that pupil teachers' regulations, so far as they led up to teachers' certificates, should be as nearly as possible the same all oyer the colony. The question of scholarship regulations could hardly be considered apart from the whole question of the link between secondary and primary education. The question of teachers' certificates brought up the question of teachers" examinations and marks awarded for efficiency. Each training college should have a model school in connection with it, where students should practice every day under close supervision. The director should be a lecturer in psychology, and the history of education, and should have full control. With regard to the co-ordination of primary and secondary education the present sysbem only partly and roughly solved the ques-tions,-as there was no limit to the number of free places for which the extra. £4 per annum would be paid. There was no reason why in all district high schools education should not be free if it were expedient to make it so. The Minster was inclined to favour the establishment of district high schools rather than -of high schools too small to be stable, either i.i staff or numbers of pupils. In large towns thnt possess fully equipped high schools those who had passed standard VL and were ready to continue their school course for only a year might be dealt with in a seventh standard, but with those that were ready to stay two or three years the case was different. To provide for them free secondary education in primrry schools WDuld cripple the high schools, ,yet without such free secondary education they had to face the high school fees. In short, should district high schools be, established in towns where fully equipped high schools exist, or was secondary education to be given in standard VII. ? '' ' The address concluded with .a statement on the authority of the Minister that a new School Attendance Bill would be introduced next session. It was proposed to raise the age of exemption to 14. It was resolved that in the opinion of the members o£ the Conference it is desirable that individual recorded pass in Standards 11., m. f IV., and V. be abolished ; that the Minister be asked to curtail the syllabus of instruction so as to allow of sufficient time, a week being devoted in all schools to the teaching of fundamental subjects of the syllabus ; that the curtailment required might be secured ; (a) by making the geography course snorter and more precise; (b) by making fiistory-reading a subject only, and no longer liable to snecial examination"; -'(c > » by re-arranging the course of instruction in arithmetic, omitting altogether the study of the metric system of weights and measures, discount andlpresent worth of stocks, and compound interest; that the number of class subjects may be reduced in country schools by allowing the' teachers to leave out at* the discretion of the inspectors one or more subjects; that the syllabus in composition be modified, and from Standards 11. to VI. a better graduated scheme of work be adoptsd; that only so much grammar as is necessary.'to give a rational comprehension of the princ : ples of composition be taught; that in classes receiving instruction in the subject grammar be included in the subjects forming the basis of promotion. The motion on the question of grammar was under discussion when the Conference adjourned.