ROLL NUMBER OR AVERAGE?

Wairarapa Age, 6 May 1924, Page 4

ROLL NUMBER OR AVERAGE?

The meetings of householders last night were invited by the New Zealand Educational Institute to endorse a sort of round robin condemning the method of grading schools according to the average attendance instead of by the average number on the roll. The fact that the roll number is not used as the standard seems to suggest that the authorities are afraid of the rolls being “packed” with the names of pupils who may not be actually attending the school in order to qualify for a higher grade. It is obviously right that the teaching staff should be adequate for the school when 100 per cent of the pupils attend regularly. If pupils are liable to be absent from sickness or any other reason, the teachers themselves are not immune, so that on the whole the staff is not likely to be more than enough to cope with an average attendance. The Department will probably plead just now that for lack of funds it cannot afford the increase in personnel would follow if the roll were the standard instead of the average attendance. Still, the principle seems a proper* one, and the householders are entitled to voice their approval of it even if they do not see any immediate prospects of its being adopted.