Native Schools.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 7080, 28 February 1893, Page 2

Native Schools.

A thorough revision of the regulations under which Native schools are carried on has been recently made by the Minister of Education, assisted by the officers of the department, the object being to render the plan of education, attractive both to parents and childrens Under the new code teachers are no longer to be paid for what they are capable of doing, but for the work they actually perform. There is a nucleus of £6O in every headteacher’s salary, but every further payment depends largely on the quality of work done, an increment of 80s per head per annum on the average attendance, and a bonus of 6s per annum for every mark in the total gained by pupils who have passed the last examination in the preceding calendar year, form, along with (he nucleus, the whole of the headteacher’s salary. A full pass in a subject will give one mark, a bare pass only half a mark, while a strong pass will secure a mark and a half. Payments for assistance rendered to head-teachers are now all strictly limited by the attendance. The result of these arrangements will be that the cost per head of children attending Native schools will not rise above that of pupils attending public schools similarly situated with regard to attendance and remoteness from a centra of population. Among the minor improvements which were made in the code the following may be noted .—Facilities are given for terminating engagements of beginners showing no aptitude for Native school work—all enter the service as probationers. The Native school standards, without being made much moip difficult, aremore explicit than they were. Some important additions are made, however, to the syllabus for girls attending Native boarding schools. The household work that they are expected to be familiar with has been specified. Provision has been made for examination and classification in the higher public school standards of European children attending Native schools. Two or three public school holidays have been added to the Native school list. There is a new and important rule recognising a practice already, to some extent, in vogue, of local visitors, whoso general functions it shall be to report to the department any matter connected with a Native school or schools in their district, who may bo appointed by the Minister. The special functions of local visitors shall be to pay frequent unannounced visits to the schools, to examine the register o£ children present, and enter the result in a be book. The Inspeotor-Oeneral of Schoolf who left Wellington last week, has been in* stmeted to make special efforts to improve the system of local vwitation in the Auskland district, where most of the Native schools are