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Inspectors and teachers. Each education district might be represented by an Inspector, and eacli Island might be represented by, say, five teachers. If that committee were to meet it could lay down rules and formulate principles for a grading scheme. Having done that the next thing would be, I think, to set up a grading board. . The Dominion committee would then have done its work. The grading board might consist of either an Inspector from each district ' with the Inspector-General of Schools, or it might consist of, say, three Inspectors from each Island, with the Inspector-General of Schools. If it consisted of the three Inspectors then I think the Education Department might be asked to make the selection of the officers required. I do not think I would include teachers on the grading board. I think I would leave them out in my proposal. Now, that grading board would meet once every year in Wellington. Then the several districts in New Zealand might be asked to grade their teachers within their borders. The Education Boards could undertake the grading of teachers within their districts. These graded lists, which would be made out in terms of the recommendations of the Dominion committee, would then be forwarded to the grading board. The grading board would then proceed to arrange in order of merit from these graded lists the teachers whose names appeared thereon. The grading board would also have power to alter or amend the grading of any teacher, and the altered grading would remain in force until the next meeting of the grading board —in other words, for a year. On matters having reference to the general graded lists of teachers, the decision of the grading board would be final. Finally, I would recommend that a copy of these general graded lists should be sent to each education district in New Zealand. You might say to me, How is that a system of Dominion promotion? Ido not think it is at all, but I do not know that we can at this stage hope to get any complete system of Dominion promotion. I do not think we can unless our Boards were done away with and the whole education of New Zealand centralized. What we could do would be this : We could get these graded lists, and each Board would then be able to compare the teachers in its own district with the teachers in other districts, and would be able to make the appointments accordingly. I am just as well aware as anybody of the great difficulty there will be in preparing the graded lists. Ihe standard differs very much from district to district. An Inspector in one district might take a very lenient view of what is required of a teacher, and an Inspector in another district a much more exacting view; and so in some districts the marks might be much more liberally given than in others. I knowthat is a very serious difficulty, but I do not think it is a difficulty that cannot to a very great extent be overcome, and I do think it could be overcome in some such way as I suggest. The next matter I would like to draw attention to is the awarding of scholarships. That has already been dealt with by the Inspector-General of Schools this morning. I may say that what the Inspector-General said this morning was said by myself nearly two years ago here. Of course, Ido not for one moment mean to suggest that I was the first person who thought about it. The great point is to get the matter brought forward and discussed. I feel strongly that something of the kind should be done —that the scholarships should take the form of boarding-allowances to country children who have to live away from home. Ido not know whether anything was said this morning as to whether the Inspector-General would make any distinction between the holders of Senior Scholarships and the holders of Junior Scholarships. I would be inclined to make such a distinction, and to do away with the scholarship allowance so far as Junior Scholarships, Board of Education Scholarships, and National Scholarships are concerned, and allow the Senior Scholarship holders either to receive the amount they at present receive, or something like it. All these National, Education Board, and Junior Scholarship holders, I think, should receive a free place, plus a boarding-allowance if they have to live away from home; but any Senior Scholarship holder, I think, should receive something in. addition to that—say, £8 or £10 in addition to the boar ding-allowance. The reason I think the Senior Scholarship holders should receive this is that parents have to make a somewhat greater sacrifice in allowing a Senior Scholarship holder to attend school than in the case of a Junior Scholarship holder, especially if these parents are living in the country. If a boy sixteen years of age is living with his parents at home he can be of considerable use to his parents after school hours or before school hours. If, of course, he is living away from home the parent is deprived of his boy's or girl's services altogether, and these services are more useful after the boy or girl reaches the age of sixteen or seventeen than they are at the age of twelve or fourteen. Are we to give this allowance, if we decide to do this, to everybody who has qualified for a senior or junior free place? Not quite to everybody. To all those, as the Inspector-General said to-day, who reach a certain standard of education, and I think that standard of education might very well be that which is implied by ability to pass the Junior National Scholarship Examination. All the pupils who are able to pass that examination, I think, should receive free tuition, plus a boarding-allowance, if needed. 3. What qualifications would you say —60 per cent.?—l would take the same qualifications as the Department has laid down —I think, 50 per cent, of the total marks. I next wish to refer to the staffing of schools. A great deal has been done by the Inspector-General of Schools in the matter of giving a more liberal staffing than we have had previously, but notwithstanding the fact that our schools are staffed according to the regulations, some of them, I consider, are still understaffed; because, although it is quite true that if we were to take the total number of teachers and the total number of children in our district and do a division sum, we shall find that no one teacher has to teach a large number of children —I forget exactly how it works out —yet we find in some of our large schools as many as sixty or seventy, or even more, children in some classes. I need hardly say that is far too many children for a teacher to do justice to, and although I may be told that the teachers get assistance in the form of pupil-teachers from time to time, yet, after all, of what real assistance can a pupil-teacher be? You cannot break up a great class like that, and give half or even a portion to the pupil-teacher. As a matter of fact, this is sometimes done : the brightest pupils are given to the pupil-teacher for instruction in certain subjects, leaving the