EARLIER SELECTION WANTED

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 192, 10 May 1940, Page 8

EARLIER SELECTION WANTED

Candidates For Teachers’ Training Schools

The present method of selecting candidates for entry to teachers’ training colleges was discussed at the annual meeting in Wellington yesterday of the New Zealand Educational Institute, and after delegates had expressed the view that the system was unsatisfactory the following remit, originally moved by Auckland and subsequently amended, was carried:— “That the medical inspection of prospective training college students and the interview by the selection committee, which shall consist of the senior inspector, the principal of the training college or his deputy, and one woman member, shall be held as early in the year as possible in order to enable a candidate who may be considered unsuitable to change his course.”

Mr. J. W. Armstrong (Otago), chairman of the sessions committee which considered a number of remits on the training of teachers, said the suggested method of selecting candidates earlier in the year would enable those rejected to have an opportunity of taking a course of studies for some other profession. This opportunity was not possible if candidates did not come before the selection committee till November or December.

The meeting decided also that the training of teachers should consist of a four-year course—three years in a training college and one year at a primary, contributing, intermediate or secondary school. The remit was proposed by North Canterbury, and their proposal that the training-school period should be two years was amended to three years by the sessions committee.

-A North Canterbury remit, that in the four centres there be established associated schools for the training of student teachers, the staffs to be specially selected and adequately paid, was also carried.