Appendix A.]

E.—2.

It is pleasing to note thai the Boards are now intrusted with the carrying-out of the details in con nexion with the system, and that ttie clerical work involved has been reduced to a minimum. The system is now in operation at six schools in this district. Teachers. —The total number of teachers in the service on the 31st December, excluding relievingteachers, pupil-teachers, and probationers, was 397. Of these, 180 were males and 217 were females, the number holding teachers' certificates being 216. Uncertificated Teachers. —The number of uncertificated teachers in the district was 181, the proportion to the whole number of teachers in the service being approximately 23/50 or 45-6 per cent. With the annual overspill of the Training College, and the efforts of uncertificated teachers in the district to qualify, the proportion should steadily diminish, unless the number of schools increases in a still greater ratio. The Board offers every encouragement and every facility to uncertificated teachers to secure their certificates. If they are unsuccessful at their examinations, or do not make any effort to qualify, they understand that they must yield their positions to qualified teachers when such are avadable. Pupil-teachers ami Probationers. -At the recent examination for pupil-teachers and probationers forty-three young people presented themselves —thirty-six girls and seven boys. The educational qualifications were: Matriculation. 10; Civil Service Junior, 14; Senior Free Place, 6: Pro licieney. 13. The positions are falling more and more to the pupils of the secondary schools and the secondary classes of the district high schools. The possibility of qualifying by the gaining oi intermediate, or lower, or higher leaving-certificates. and the fact that certificates for practical work arc a condition precedent to permission to sii for an elementary-science subject at tin- Civil Service Examination, still further restricts the area from which the supply of teachers may be drawn. The facilities lor free secondary education are now so many that most young | pie can avail themselves of them. Tue position with respect to the Supply of pupil-teachers seems to suggest justification tor withdrawing money scholarships altogether from pupils within reach of secondary schools, and devoting the funds tii us set free to the provision of resident scholarships lor country pupils at the nearest secondary School. Owing to the difficulty experienced in getting qualified assistants lor the schools, the Board has occasionally transferred pupil-teachers to such positions. The Department objects to tiiis as an infraction of the regulations. If the regulation has been broken, the district has gained in efficiency, lor it has been proved over ami over again tiiat qualified (not in the sense of certificated) assists at £90 are unprocurable. As the transferred pupil-teachers do practically the same work as they would have undertaken had they not been transferred, it is not easy to see why the regulation prohibit ing the admission to the Training College of young persons who. after spending two or more years as pupil-teachers, become, owing to the dearth of anything in the shape of qualified teachers, temporary assistants, should not be modified in certain cases in the interests of efficiency, especially as their courses of study were continued in view of the fact that they were under an obligation to go to the College as soon as their positions could be filled. There were sixty-one pupil-teachers and eighteen probationers in the Board's service at the end of the year. Training oj Teachers. — -Saturday classes for the training of teachers and pupil-teacners were held at Hawera, Wanganui, Mangaweka, and Feilding. The adult teachers took agriculture and drawing, and the pupil-teachers drawing and singing. Correspondence classes were conducted by teachers in the Board's service, the subjects being English, Latin, arithmetic, mathematics, and scl i method. There are not wanting evidences that good work was done through these agencies. Tue classes in agriculture, judged by the results of Utf examination of teachers, were particularly successful. Classification and Promotion of Teachers. -The Board lias seen no reason tor dissatisfaction with ihe system under which appointments of teachers are made. For over four years ii has been subjected to the severest tests, and it is not too much to say that when the methods adopted are understood, Committees, teachers, and parents are thoroughly satisfied with it. Such a thing as the use of influence by teachers to secure valued appointments is unknown, and canvassing for positions is never met with. The only drawback to the success of the method adopted is the few avenues of promotion above Grade IV schools. In this district there are only thirty-nine schools of Grade V and upwards, while there are 164 schools below that grade. Some slight alterations will be made in 1913 ffi the details of the scheme, in the direction of reducing the number of marks for educational qualification from 20 to 15 per cent., and the increasing of the marks for teaching (apart from service, organization, discipline, personality, and influence on environment of 10 per cent, each) to 35 per cent. Then, instead of one list for head teachers and another for assistants, there will be three promotion-lists—one for those suitable for head teachers of the different grade schools, one for those specially qualified to be infant mistresses, and one for assistants. The inauguration of Dominion promotion for teachers would undoubtedly open a wider field for the most efficient; but while there is purely local control it would be very difficult to devise any system that could be so satisfactory as that in force, especially when it is compared with the obsolete haphazard method, with all its unfairness, its limitations, its drawbacks, its paltriness, and its inability to satisfy anybody. It would be unfair to omit passing reference to the enthusiasm and whole-hearted interest shown in technical, secondary, and primary school-work by the instructors, head teachers, and assistants throughout the district; and increasing proof is evident of the wisdom of the appointment of an organizer of school-work to help the teachers by simplifying their methods and co-ordinating their work, especially in the small schools. Official Publication. —A great amount of information has to be sent to the teachers by circulars and memoranda, and the supervisors of agricultural instruction as well as the Inspectors felt it incumbent on them to send information dealing with special phases of their work. It has accordingly been considered advisable to prepare and send out periodically an official pamphlet" dealing with agricultural teaching and school-vrork generally. It is believed that such a record of current educational life and opinion cannot fail to enhance the value of the work of the schools.

V