EDUCATIONAL REFORMS.

Ohinemuri Gazette, Volume XXII, Issue 2780, 21 April 1911, Page 2

EDUCATIONAL REFORMS.

PROMOTION OF TEACHERS.

Any movement tending to increased efficiency in our educational service may justly claim the hearty support of every householder in the dominion. It is well known that there is a serious shortage of teachers, that many admittedly excellent men have left the profession, and that it fails fo attract our youths, it is an honourable profession and onerous beyond most. It needs our best men and women and no effort should be spared to obtain and retain such as the teachers ot our boys and girls. We believe that one of the most potent factors in creating the undesirable, not to say disastrous condition of things we have referred to, is the uncertainty of promotion. " Hope deferred makelh the heart sick," and many a teacher has lost heart altogether as, like Nelson's old lieutenant, he "has become bajd owing to, jiiniors stepping over his head." Nothing quenches enthusiasm more than conviction that while honest hard work fails to obtain its fairly earned and adequate reward, " kissing goes by favour."

The Auckland Education • Board has recognised the necessity of placing the promotion ot its teachers on a better basis, but the question is not merely a local one. Nominally tne education system is a national one ; with respect to promotion of teachers, interpietation of the syllabus, and text books it is nothing of the sort. If it were, teachers having equal qualifications would have equal opportunities. Theoretically they have, but in the smaller education districts the number of good positions is very limited ; and such is the'result of the existence of 13 such districts that, no matter how able a man maybe, if his lot is cast in a small district he finds it almost impossible to obtain, a transfer

to an equal position—to say nothing ot promotion to a better position—in a larger district.

We have a dominion scale of staffs and salaries. We have a dominion

superannuation scheme for teachers. Why not a dominion promotion scheme? The demand for this reform is rapidly gaining force as its reasonableness and justice become more and more appreciated.

For its successful initiation it involves the amalgamation of at least the smaller education districts, for the multiplicity ot which there can be no justification whatever from the economic point of view. That it thus makes for a decrease in the cost of administration is a further argument in its favour. But the weightiest argument is that such a scheme must make for greater efficiency by making it possible to place the most skilful in those positions where they will be most useful, and by arousing in our teachers that enthusiasm (so necessary for the successful prosecution of their work) which is born of a knowledge that merit will be rewarded by the giving of opportunity for its effective use.

We therefore trust that the householders of the district will unhesitatingly authorise the chairman ot the annual meeting to forward to the Minister ior Education the following resolution which has been prepared for submission at all such meetings throughout the dominion :— " That this -meeting of householders considers that, in the best interests of education, a dominion scheme for the promotion of teachers is urgently required."