IRKSOME REGULATIONS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 18973, 26 March 1924, Page 5

IRKSOME REGULATIONS

HEAD TEACHERS PROTEST AN APPEAL TO PUBLIC SENTI* MENT. AT VARIANCE WITH THE MINISTER. (Per Press Association). WELLINGTON. March 25. With the support of similar associfr Itions, in Christchurch and Dunedin, the Wellington Headmasters’ Association is endeavouring to show through the pr<*ss that the recent regulations regard if g the organisation of schools are both impracticable and undesirable. Head* musters complain that they have received scant consideration from the Minister of Education and his department One way, they say. of convincing the public would be merely to publish the regulations and ask them to judge whether they are practicable, seeing that regulation 3A requires that a headmaster shall devote the major portion ; of his time to the work of actual teaching. In order to make their cas-o .clearer they have tabulated under thirty heads the duties which by regulation 1 head teachers are called upon to per I form, and have subjoined a carefully considered estimate of the average I:m< | per week that is required for eadi. The’ i note that the Director of Educatioi i has ruled that a headmaster is teach [ing only when he is in a class roont ' actually giving a lesson, or at least questioning the pupils. Looking through examination papers or other written work is not to be considered as teaching. A carefully drafted tabulation shows that the preparing and giving of twenty-five lessons weekly bv the latest approved methods, the training of pupil teachers, the conducting of term examinations, the issuing of reports, outlining schemes of W’ork, inspecting teachers’ diaries, attending to correspondence registers, visitors, and the tone and civic life of the school, with other detailed duties, would occupy over 51 hours per week. The headmasters contend tjiat what is being done efficiently now’ occupies 40 hours per week in and out of regular school time. The association states that the regulations are inadvisable because they restrict a headmaster as Io the means he may we to secure the efficiency of his school, because headmasters know r that they can be. neither obeyed nor enforced; that as a consequence they will tend to bring about the lax observance of other regulations because they contravene the principles that should guide one in framing regu lations, viz., being necessary, being a: few as possible, being definite, being both easy to observe and easy to on force; because if the Department con siders these regulations necessary it admits the futility and untrustworthiness of its own grading list, inasmuch, as the teachers affected have been placed high on that list presumably because the Department considers them able and conscientious teachers. If some of them, are no longer considered, efficient, Ih<i association points out that the remedy is to alter their position on the grading list and if necessary remove them from their present positions. The headmasters urge the Department to remember the advice of one of the Dominion ’3 greatest educationists, Mr G. A. Hogben: * ‘Get a good man in charge of a school and leave him alone.” Finally, the regulations are inadvisable because the Department is unwise to restrict the right of parents to interview a head teacher regarding their child*ren. The headmaster knows, and apparently the Department docs not know, how important it is that he should work in co-operation with parents, especially now that the State is taking over more and more the care of children. The headmasters state that they believe parents and past scholars understand better than does the Education Department the work that is being done in the New Zealand schools. No two headmasters conduct their schools exactly alike. The personality of a teacher rightly shows itself in each. Past pupils know that the spirit of self sacrifice inspiring the work of the vast majority of teachers is an infinitely bet ter thing than the spirit which the Government by regulation will engender. The association is resisting th<» recent regulations not because headmasters will find them irksome to themselves, but because they know that their enforcement will gravely impair the efficiency of their schools. They ask that the regulations be cancelled, and that if necessary others drafted with the assistance and co-operalion of representative head teachers should be substituted. The statement concludes: The refusal of the Minister of Education to grant this reasonable request convinces us that he has no desire to work in a spirit of co-operation with teachers for the welfare of the children of New Zealand.”