THE EDUCATION SYSTEM.

Southland Times, Issue 18824, 18 May 1920, Page 2

THE EDUCATION SYSTEM.

To the Editor. Sir, —I read with much interest and pleasure your timely editorial on “The Education System” in to-day’s issue of your paper. Will you kindly allow me space in your columns for one or two comments? Reform in education cannot be carried out without increosed expenditure. As you say, Sir, “at the present time the expenditure on education is not giving anything like the return that it should, and it is beyond argument that if the adition of some millions will alter the present ineffectual system into something of real value, the dominion will be the gainer.” The first essential in education is an adequate supply of teachers. This the country has not got. As a matter of fact we are two thousand teachers short of the number required. To be two thousand workers short must be disastrous to the success of any undertaking. The most urgent reform needed then is to increase the supply of teachers. How is this to be done? One occasionally hears it said that teachers must have a good and easy time with such short hours and such long vacations. If this be true how is it that the profession is not flooded with eager applicants for such desirable billets? When one comes to consider it there must be some very objectional conditions attaching to the work of teaching or young men and women would be easily found to follow a career that seems to afford such an abundance of leisure. It may be worth while to enquire into these conditions and to try to discover how they may be improved. One or two probable reasons for the unpopularity of the teaching profession may be just mentioned here; possibly some of your readers may know of others. At present teachers are;—(l) Hampered in their work by (a) lack of material equipment; (b) crowded class rooms; (c) large classes. (2) Often wretchedly housed. (3) Poriy paid in comparison with other professions and have a superannuation al lowance doled out to their widows and children that is such a mere pittance as to be a disgrace to a government that permits it. Improvement in these respects would go a long way towards bringing into the profession the required number of teachers. — I am, etc., L. E. M.