GRADING OF SCHOOLS

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21418, 9 March 1935, Page 7

GRADING OF SCHOOLS

CRITICISM OF PRESENT BASIS OPINIONS OF HEADMASTERS The opinion that primary schools in New Zealand should be graded and staffed by the Education Department on a basis of the average roll number, instead of on the average attendance as at present, was expressed after the subject had been exhaustively discussed at the last monthly meeting of the North Canterbury Headmasters', Association. The reasons submitted by the meeting in support of its opinions were:— Attendance is compulsory and irregularity of attendance is due mainly to illness. The incidence of sickness is greatest among young children, and these are the ones who are most seriously affected by wet weather. Logically, for these reasons the primary schools should be the first to be graded and staffed on roll number. The system of grading and staffing on average attendance is universally condemned as unsound in principle, and only in the primary schools, including native schools and the secondary departments of district high schools, has it survived. In every other type of school the roll number has been accepted by the department as the correct basis. In secondary schools staffing is on tlie basis of one assistant teacher to 25 pupils up to a roll of 300 and one to 30 thereafter. In technical schools there is one assistant for each 28 pupils; in intermediate schools one to 40 pupils. In all these types the roll on March 1 is the basis of staffing; that is. the peak period. Moreover, in all these types of school the principal is not included in computing the number of teachers on the staff. Health regulations, necessary and right in themselves, have been imposed without reference to their effect upon average attendance, and the .grading and staffing of the primary schools. In effect the department has decreed that in certain circumstances the pupils must not be allowed to attend, but the schools must suffer through their non-attendance. Moreover, the health regulations in themselves are inconsistent. A pupil absent for dental treatment one day in any week may be counted present cn presentation of a certificate from the dentist, but if absent for more than one day must be marked absent for the remaining days. On the other hand a child may be required by the school medical officer or private practitioner to absent himself for eye, ear, throat, or any other necessary treatment, but must in every case be marked absent. Again, in the case of an infectious or contagious disease, those affected and also "contacts must, absent themselves for specified periods varying from a minimum of one week to six weeks or more. No allowance is made for these absences unless the disease becomes epidemic. Although school committees have to provide facilities for all the pupils on the school roll, their capitation grant is based on average attendance, the amount payable being appreciably diminished. The department has recently enacted that when attendance, from special circumstances, falls below 90 per cent, of the roll number, 95 per cent, may be substituted. Why should this not apply to all cases below 95 per cent.? The passage of these special enactments is a tacit admission that average attendance is not a fair basis for grading and staffing; and as roll number has been recognised as a just basis for grading and staffing of secondary, technical, and intermediate schools, the logical conclusion must be that it should form the basis of grading and staffing of primary schools also.