Manawatu Herald TUESDAY, AUGUST 9, 1892. The Eduoation Board.

Manawatu Herald, 9 August 1892, Page 2

Manawatu Herald TUESDAY, AUGUST 9, 1892. The Eduoation Board.

» Some discussion has arisen from one of the papers -within the Wanganui Education District having objected to .the positions within its schools being thrown open to the whole of the teachers of the colony. This paper being of the opinion that the district should be made a olose corporation, and the appointments to its sohools only made from members of its own teaching staff. This is of course most peouliar pleading, as the Education Act is a colonial and not a local one, and all teachers are upon one list holding the same class of degrees, Certainly they are divided into various divisions, as many as there are boards in the colony, but that is merely for the purpose of enabling tho supervision of the districts being more easily attended to, and not to secure the quicker appointment of teachei'3 to better paid positions without reference to their ability. We hold the question the ratepayers are most interested in is not the opportunities that are to be afforded teachers to secure larger salaries, but that school-committees should have the opportunity ot selecting the best teacher from any number who may choose to apply for the vacancy. The success of the soholars, and not the increase of the incomes of the teachers being the primary point It appears therefore most necessary to enlarge the field as wide as possible from which selections can be made. At one time the Wanganui Board acted as our contemporary desired but it was so unsatisfactory that it had to be abandoned. The Wanganui Chroriiole, the editor being the chairman of the board, has something to say upon the subject. It is " the practice of the Board aa we have followed it, is to ascertain whether within the ranks of their own teachers they can secure for any vacancy that may occur a suflicent number of qualified and satisfactory applicants to give the committee interested a reasonable freedom of choice. Wherever, say, from three- to five satisfactory , ampliations for any position are : obtainable frorpK teachers, in 'the Board's own eraployi.it is not .the practice^ of the Board to advertise the vacancy outside of the district. If there were no . committees to be consulted, it would be a comparatively simple matter for the Board to so re-arrange the teaching staff as to make very infrequent the necessity for inviting applications from beyond the district. But as the law stands, the committees are entitled to a real, and not merely a nominal say in the appointments ; and it is a question whether any Board can legally limit their choice to the teachers employed in the educational district of which they form a part." It is satisfactory to find that the Wanganui Education Board is now fully alive to the fact that committees are entitled to a real say in the appointments of teachers. It is not more than seven years ago they insulted a committee by pretending to offer a choice of three teachers for the head mastership of a school that was vacant to secure the appointment of a master previously decided on by the Board, as two of the teachers were ineligible for reasons impossible to "make public, go that the appointment of the third,

who had been mentioned at Wanganui as the teacher for the sohool, before the applications we^e sent to the committee, was secured. The Board made it Hobson's choice with the committee, refusing to send further names, so the committee to act and threw the selection upon the board, ,»!.h the result as pre arranged. This certainly was not an instance of admitting the real say to the committee-. In justice to the present chairman we desira to state that he did not hold that position than. In this defence of the board we object to the statement that " if there \rer« no committees to be consulted, it would be a comparatively simple matter for the Board to so re-arrange the teaching staff as to make very infrequent the necessity for inviting applications from beyond the district," as it appears that the Board still hankers after the supreme control in the face of the admission that the committees have been so dissatisfied with the Board's selections as to require them frequently to obtain applications from beyond the district. While the teaching staff is a colonial one it must be fairest both to the public and the teachers that every teacher within the colony should be eligible for every vacancy.