EDUCATION.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume XXIII, 19 May 1922, Page 7

EDUCATION.

SECONDARY ASSISTANTS. ANNUAL MEETING. Per Press Association —Copyright. WELLINGTON, May 17. The annual meeting of the Secondary School Assistants’ Association of New. Zealand commenced to-day. The president (Mi- R. M. Laing, M.A.) occupied the chair. The President said that there could be no more reproductive expenditure than that upon education, which always bore results. New Zealand deserved a system of education equal at least to any other system in the world. There was no reason why it should not strive for something better. Mr F. Martyn Renner, of Wellington, was unanimously re-elected secretary and treasurerfor 1922. The conference proceeded to discuss a series of remits respecting the gi adiug of teachers and the staffing of schools, and it iwas decided to draw the attention of the Minister to the congestion in various grades of secondary schools, and to the difficulty which non-univer-sity-centre secondary schools found in getting suitable teachers; also .to urge him to amend the regulations so as to enable reasonable expenses to be paid to teachers moving from one school to another.

The Chief Inspector of secondary schools (Mr James Drummond) thought the remit would have little hope of success at the present time, on the score of expense to the Department, A resolution was passed urging that regulations for secondary schools be amended—(a) so as to render it possible to have ’accelerated promotion within grade, but especially in Giade D, in cases where, in the opinion of the Secondary School Inspectors, such promotion was warranted; (2) so that a teacher graded higher than the grade of the position held should receive the maximum salary of the lower grade. A Gisborne remit —that one year of war service should count as two years for grading and superannuation—was approved. It was agreed to recommend that teachers who have appealed successfully against their grading should be allowed travelling expenses to and from the placo ef appeal, as alreadyallowed in the Public Service. Remits were passed that each secondary school should be governed by a Board of its own; and that all ‘newi secondary schools may be mixed schools. The conference substantially approved the proposals of the Dental Conference with the exception of that which suggested the constitution of a temporary Board of Managers of Junior High Schools during the experimental stage. This was criticised as undemocratic and of too centralising a tendency? RESOLUTIONS PASSED. WELLINGTON, May 18. Among resolutions passed to-day were the following. A senior mistress, of a Technical High School with a roll number of over. 200 pupils, should receive £3O in addition to graded salary as recompense for additional dirties involved; there should be a definite scale of salaries for student teachers in Technical ’Schools at least as liberal as that provided for Primary Schools; that where a teacher supervises evening classes, the Education Department should be asked to regard such service as equivalent of overtime teaching work, and pay for it accordingly ; that the maximum salary for men in Divi sion 11 -be increased to £450 and for women to £336; that teaching hours of Technical School tei chers be fixed at ten half days weeiri. , it being understood that evening duty be counted as half a day and thin a teachei on duty for part of half day be regarded as on duty for;the .whole of that half day, this system to be adopted on the understanding; that staffing rates be one to 25 pupils on the roll on March 31; that the hours of service required of teachers be 30 per week, for not less than 40 weeks per ye:n, hours of services being as . actual timetable hours as signed by the director; that as a general rule, teachers be not called upon to teach on more than

two evenings per Week; that when allotting marks, the classification o. ficers 'shall give due weight to the ire commendations of the principal of the school concerned, particularly as to the out-of school activities of instinct ors; that in the classification of those in the service before the initial grading regulations requiring the posses sidn of a university degree or its equivalent for classification in the professional division, be more liberally interpreted, that in the case of these teachers lack of higher degrees be ■ no bar to positions in higher grades; that technical school boards lie allowed to retain one-thud of the class fees: that provision be made for the allocation to technical education of a. fair‘share of the revo ntxe from national endowments; that in view of the fact that members of Boards of Managers are held pertai-

ally responsible for the interest on bank overdrafts, this conference request the Minister of Education to have progress and other payments made immediately when due, failing which interest should be added at the current bank rate. ADDRESS BY MINISTER.

The Hon. C. J. Parr (Minister of Education, addressing the Secondary Schools Conference to-day, - said that he was glad to have this 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 secondary teachers' were hardly dealt with. Considering the importance of their work, their pay and conditions were, in his opinion, inadequate and the Government had succeeded in passing legislation which now provided for a Dominion service. Formerly there was no classification of secondary teachers and no uniformity with regard to their salaries. Teachers were under some 30 different Boards and in some instances he thought that the Boards had acted fairly whilst in others he hardly thought such was the case. He had noticed two teachers under different Boards, but doing the same work, receiving in salary a difference of a considerable amount. He felt it to be his duty to try and put such a siate of things right by means of classification and a uniform Tate of pay.

“The result has been, | ’believe,” he added, “a substantial increase 'in. the emoluments.” He did not say the classification system was perfect, and added, “but I think I can claim your agreement with me that the conditions are now much better than they were. ’ ’ IS NEW ZEALAND BEHIND? In the course of his remarks at the Secondary Schools’ Conference, Mr Parr gave high praise to the teachers of secondary schools and congratulated them on the fine spirit being inculcated into the pupils. He spoke of the efforts made to bridge the gap between -elementary and secondary schools, and said he thought we did not experiment enough. It might be better if they established separate schools. The Minister expressed the opinion that secondary education was not so far advanced in New Zealand as in England. Regarding this point,*' Mr ‘F. H. Campbell, Dunedin, thought that data should be supplied. There was just as good liiaterial in New Zealand, and if the Minister’s statement was true there must be something wrong in our system of education. It was a serious statement to make and he would like to hear the matter discussed. Mr F. Milner said that- the whole matter would be gone into when the subject of junior high schools was considered. Mr T. R. Cresswell, Wellington, President, said that the teachers were fully aware of the desirability of experimenting, but it was difficult to do so when reconstruction was taking place. Mr Tibbs, Auckland, congratulated the Minister on the improvements made.