2

E.—lβ

In Standard VI, 1,437 certificates of proficiency and 443 certificates of competency were awarded by the Inspectors. The standard of attainments required for the certificate of proficiency was raised considerably from the beginning of the year, in accordance with the revised regulations of the Department. The higher standard has been readily met in nearly all classes of schools, and quite a large number of pupils gained much higher marks than were required to secure a pass. At the Roman Catholic schools there were 1,977 pupils on the rolls, 1,831 were present at the Inspectors' annual visits, and fifty-eight certificates of proficiency, and thirty-five certificates of competency were awarded. At these schools the proportion of pupils in Standard VI to those in the lower classes is much less than that obtained in the public schools. During the latter half of the year, one of the Inspectors (Mr. J. S. Goodwin) was unable, by reason of illness, to undertake any work in country districts. This threw a very severe strain of work on the other Inspectors, and my thanks are especially due to Messrs. Grierson, Stewart, and Purdie for their exertions in preventing the work from falling into arrears. As Mr. Goodwin has now been retired from active service, I use this occasion to acknowledge his long, cheery, faithful, and efficient service as an Inspector. Statements occasionally appear to the effect that the Board might do more to create facilities for education in newly settled and outlying districts. There is, so far as lam aware, no real foundation for such complaints. Unavoidable delays in providing schools in such districts are caused by the difficulty in procuring suitable sites and in subsequently getting them transferred to the Board and by the fact that the Board has to secure the Minister's approval of plans and estimates of cost before any new school building can be erected. Considering the difficulties thus arising, the Board, it seems to me, deserves credit rather than censure for this part of its administration. The promotions of pupils from class to class have, in general, been made on a sound basis, and only a small percentage of pupils have been denied promotion. Though the Inspectors' examinations rarely bring to light cases where it is proposed to grant promotions unworthily, later inspection-visits show that pupils sometimes have considerable difficulty in coping with the reading of the classes into which they have been advanced. Reading is a subject in which a satisfactory degree of proficiency, tested by matter not previously seen as well as by the usual reading-books, should be insisted on before promotion is "ranted • for if new reading-lessons are made out with difficulty, neither the matter nor the language can be so understood as to make their treatment productive of an intelligent and educative result Hence considerable readiness and power in dealing with all new reading-lessons should be considered a sine qua non for promotion. .-,«,., i t The classification of pupils in a lower class in arithmetic than m English is becoming less Sequent than it has been in recent years. This arrangement involves a serious disadvantage in the Standard VI class, where pupils must take the Standard VI arithmetic for the certificate of proficiency exammaThe quality of the work done in the Standard VI class—the only class that has been examined with reasonable completeness in all schools-has been for the most part very satisfactory, and shows a distinct advance on what has been attained in former years. This result is, I believe, almost entirely due to the stimulus supplied by the certificate of proficiency examination. The gaining of these certificates is a distinction highly valued by pupils, as well as by their teachers, and the ambition to secure them has led to a degree of earnest and steady application that is bearing excellent fruit. If pupils m the intermediate standard classes could be brought to display the like earnest spirit of work, great would be the In the essential subjects of an elementary education the great mass of the pupils in the Board's schools are receiving a sound and in the main an intelligent training. Of the important subjects the weakest is composition, both oral and written, and this is especially true of the written composition of the Standard IV and Standard V classes. Reading continues to improve, and as regards fluency and accuracy it is usually very satisfactory. The practice of trying pupils with the reading of suitable passages not previously seen has been widely applied during the year, and it has afforded pleasing and conclusive evidence of very successful training in this subject. It is much to be able to say that the pupils of the public schools read lessons, suited to their stage of advancement, fluently and accurately, but it is highly desirable that we should be able to add that they read with expression. Though this praise cannot be very frequently given, it is now rare to find reading purely mechanical and unintelligent. School-children, especially in rural districts, seem often to regard elegant and expressive reading as affected and artificial, and it is not always easy to overcome this prejudice. On this aspect of reading, Mr Garrard, who joined the Inspectorate early in the year, says: " The expression associated with the intelligent comprehension of the subject-matter (of reading-lessons) is woefully lacking,' m the schools with which he has become acquainted. I find myself much more nearly in agreement with Mr. Grierson, who says ■ " I have used various books for Standard VI reading-at-sight, and both in town and country the examination of the pupils in this subject has been a pleasure." Such a result is not to be got in the Sixth Standard in all classes of schools without satisfactory training m the classes below. There is still considerable scope for improvement in the methods of leaching reading generally used by teachers. While these methods are well applied, one cannot help feeling that they do not adequately foster interest in reading, or make the consideration of the reading-matter minister in the best way to a training in oral expression by constantly requiring the pupils to express in their own language the thoughts, incidents and substance of the lessons. Some time-honoured methods are falling more and more into disrepute', more especially simultaneous reading—a practice long forced on teachers by the narrowness of the course of reading in the lower classes—and the too ready resort to pattern-reading, still so much in evidence in many of our schools. There is in both these methods a dial nctly mechanical and imitative tendency, that conflicts with the higher aims a teacher should have in view in training his pupils to self-help and self-reliance in mastering the mother-tongue. In the upper classea of our achools there