WORK OF SECONDARY SCHOOLS

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16737, 19 May 1922, Page 8

WORK OF SECONDARY SCHOOLS

MINISTER’S ADDRESS. [Per Press Association.] WELLINGTON, May 18The Hon C. J. Parr, Minister of Education, addressing the Secondary Schools Conference to-day, said he was glad to have the opportunity of congratulating the secondary school teachers of New Zealand upon the improvement made in their conditions during the past two years. Soon after taking office as Minister, he recognised that j secondary teachers were hardly dealt ! with considering the importance of j their work. Pay and conditions were, j in his opinion, inadequate- The Gov- i eminent had succeeded. in passing legislation which now provided for Dominion service. Formerly there was no classification of secondary teachers and no uniformity with regard to their Hilaries. The teachers were under sdPie thirty different boards. In some instances he thought boards had acted fairly, whilst in other cases he hardly thought such was the case- He had noticed that two teachers under different boards, but doing the same work, received salaries considerably differing in amount. He felt it to be his duty to try and put such a state of things right by means of classification and a uniform rate of pay. “The result has been, 1 believe,” be added. “ a substantial increase in emolument.” He did not say that the classification system was perfect, and added, “but I think I can claim your agreement with me that conditions are now much better than they were.” In the course of his remarks at the conference, Mr Parr gave high praise 1 to the teachers of secondary schools. ( He congratulated them on the fine ' spirit inculcated into their pupils and spoke of the efforts made to bridge ; the gap between elementary and sec- | ondary 'schools. He thought we did : not experiment enough. He thought- | it might be better if all established j separate schools. The Minister ex- j pressed the opinion that secondary education was not so far advanced in New Zealand as in EnglandRegarding this point Mr F. H. Campbell (Dunedin) said he thought data should be supplied. There was just as good material in New Zealand. If the Minister’s statement were true there must be something wrong in our system ol’ education. It was a serious statement to make. He would like to see the matter discussed. Mr F. Milner said the whole matter could be gone into when the subject of junior high schools was considered. Mr T. R. Cresswell (Wellington) said that teachers were fully aware of the desirability of experimenting, but it was difficult to do so vyhen reconstruction was taking place.

Mr Tibbs (Auckland) congratulated the Minister on the improvements made.