EDUCATIONAL.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 472, 26 August 1909, Page 2

EDUCATIONAL.

CLASSIFICATION OF TEACHERS.

At the meeting of the Wanganui Education Board on Tuesday, the chairman (Mr Fred. Pirani) made reference .to the telegraphed statements about the adoption of the system of classification of teachers by the Auckland Education Board, and the remarks of the Minister of Education thereon. He said that before the Act came into force under which power was given to the Board to transfer teachers, the Wanganui Board had commenced the consideration of a scheme for the promotion of teachers. Directly the law allowed it the scheme was completed and the system of transfer adopted. The Auckland scheme, for which so much was claimed, merely provided for classification under three heads—efficiency; length of service, and scholastic attainments. The Wanganui Board had gone much more deeply into the question and had seven grounds for promotion, viz., 10 marks for service, 30 for teaching, 10 for organising, 10 for discipline, 10 for attention to evirohment, 20 for Educational standing, and 10 for personality. In that way the inspectors were able to place each teacher in the grade most suitable, and after the classification was completed each teacher was notified of the result. As an evidence of the satisfactory manner in which the work had been, carried out, he said, only one teacher out of nearly 400 had appealed against it, and they would be able to come to the conclusion that evening that even that protest was not justified. Since the beginning of the year over a hundred transfers bad been made, and there had not been a single objection from a committee that a teacher was unsuitable for the position allotted him. While the Board, he thought properly, gave the preference to teachers trained in their own district who were capable, they had never made a practice of excluding outside teachers, and he believed that no Board in the Dominion had taken so many outsiders into its service as Wan- : ganui had. Their thanks were undoubtedly due to the Minister for Education for placing a provision on the statute-book enabling these transfers to be carried out, and thus giving the Board power to inaugurate, a system of promotion which was equitable and efficient. (Applause.)