EDUCATION BILL.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1870, 2 October 1913, Page 4

EDUCATION BILL.

SOME SUGGESTED" AMENDMENTS. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) ... Auckland, October 1. Several special provisions for suggested inclusion, in the Education Act Amendment Bill now before the House of Representatives were approved by the Education Board to-day. Tho first proposal was that tho scalo of teachers' salaries now in operation .should be amended, more especially those on tho portion of the scalo having reference to teachers in- low grade schools and assistants in secondary departments of district high schools, bo that teachers may receive more adequate remuneration for services rendered to tho State. Amendment of tho regulations was urged to enable boards to mako necessary additions to staffs of schools with rising averages.-. Another-proposal was to urge the Minister to formulate some Dominion scheme of grading and promotion by which the education authorities may have some' means of gauging tho genoral fitness of. applicants from districts other than thoir own. The idea of this proposal was that, the interchange; of teacliers*,. between education districts might be promoted tending to further tho cause of education by extending opportunities for the promotion and widening of the field from which efficient teachers may be drawn. Ono motion adopted was as follows: "That in .view of the valuable work being done at technical colleges in preparing young people for industrial and commercial careers, 1 it is desirable that an amendment be mado so that students having -conflicted a three years'' course of training to the satisfaction of the director,of tho technical college concerned, be deemed to have served an apprenticeship of two years in the particular trade or calling in which they have Specialised." Further proposals" were that financial assistance should be irTven teachers willing t<> bear some of the cost of travel who desire to visit other Countries with the object of gaining wider experience; that to overcome the difficulty of obtaining efficient teachers for smill isolated schools, the Minister should CTailt.assistance to enablo specially-selected observation schools to be formed in suitable centres', where teachers could obtain brief periods of training ; that tho salaries attnchM to positions in the proposed observation schools should be considerably in advance of thoso jwid under the existing regulations. Tlio chairman was requested to hrinir the proposals under tho notice oF the Minister. It was also -decided to forward conies of the various propositions to the other boards in the Dominion askine for their co-operation in seeking to have them included in the amending Bill.

The Rev. E. Forester has left Auckland for England, leaving tho cure of St. Columba Church, Croat North Road, vacant. The locum tenons will be tho Rev. Jasper Caldor, ponding tho arrival of tlio now vicar; who lias yet. to be appointed. Mr. V. H. Maysmor, who has boon shipping representative for tlio Vacuum Oil Company ill Now Zealand for some, years past, has boon appointed chief clerk of tlio chmpany'-s Wellington branch. Mr. L. C.' E. Hnmann, chief trainrunning clerk at Auckland, lias boon promoted to the position of chief clerk in tho traffic manager's ofßco nt Ohakune, the headouarters of tho new railway district. Air. J. H. I). Jeffures, of Greymouth, will succeed Mr. Hamann at Auckland. Australia's high wage rates were commented on by Lord Emmott, UnderSecretary for the Colonies, in a farewell interview in Melbourne last week. "What lias deeply interested mo," he oaid, "is tho high rato of wages paid for what uro ordinarily considered tlio lowest grades of work. It is sincorolv to bo hoped that tho standard to which Australians liavo become i accustomed will stand the tost of bad times. It has to be remembered that tho raising of wnges by Wages Boards and Arbitration Courts has occurred in a period of prosperity. If it does stand tho test it will be an encouragement to us in England to proceed more quickly with the raising of wages in tjie sweated and lowly-paid industries. I shall watch the development of tho social legislation in Australia .with sympathetic interest."-