TEACHERS' GRADING

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 25, 25 October 1920, Page 4

TEACHERS' GRADING

A REPLY TO THE HON. C..J. PARE. Speaking to a Dominion representative on the subject of the remarks made by the Minister of Education (Mr. C. J. Parr), which appeared in Friday's issue, the chairman of the Education Board (Mr. T. Forsyth) said: ' "The Minister is evidently annoyed at having the recent teachers' ballot shown in its true perspective, as I know he was under the impression that it would strengthen his 1 hands, whereas the actual result has left him in an awkward predicament The fact remains that only 900 out of the 5000 teachers in the Dominion favoured his idea, and yet Mr Parr states this is 'voting for a Dominion grading scheme by a representative ballot.' Mr. Parr accuses me of misrepresenting him, but I simply stated what I believe to be Ihe facte, and apparently the truth has made him angry, and this has caused him to forget the fact that abuse is no argument. It may interest the Minister, who, by the way, never misrepresents others, to know that the Otago .Board did not, as he states, 'use the unfair voting paper framed by the Wellington Board/ and I am inclined to think lie was aware of this fact when he made his statement. The Minister states: 'A ballot taken by the Teachers' Institute showed 91 teachers for the Dominion grading scheme and only 8 against it, whereas through the use of the misleading paper framed by Mr. Foisyth 77 voted for and 43 against the same proposal. The total number of votes is approximately the same in each ballot.' If the above numbers are 'approximately the same,' then •jndoubtedly, in the hands of Mr. Parr, ligures can be made to prove anything. The Minister's statemont that 'any intelligent clerk in the Wellington Board's office cn.i solve in hulf-iui-hour this so-called pw.lo,' is most amusing, wero it not for tho fact that I have his own Departmental oSicer's letter wherein, when referring to the list supplied (i.e., tho socalled puzzle), it stales: 'Willi reference to jour request; iikt the Department should supply the board with a complete Its? of the names of teachers whose cases aro enumerated in the statistical tables alronily forwarded to you, 1 have to state that it took the staft of the' examination branch several weeks 1.0 ccxipiie uiese statistics by sorting, grouping, and regrouping all the cards, and 1 have to regret that this work could not possibly be gone over again, rhe Department has kept no record ol the ill; clividuals to which tho figures refer The Minister can accept my assurance that I snail bo delighted to receive and welcome "him at the next meeting of my board, when he will be given half-an-bxur 'to explain tho very simple list of anomalies, and, in the meantime, might I suggest that lie refrain from further criticism of tho Education Boards system of promotion of teachers until he has had full opportunity of grasping the facts "