EDUCATION MATTERS

Southland Times, Issue 18852, 18 June 1920, Page 6

EDUCATION MATTERS

SECONDARY TEACHERS’ SALARIES. INADEQUATE TECHNICAL INSTRUCTION. THE MINISTER’S VIEWS. (Per United Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, June 17. The Hon. C. J. Parr told a deputation today that he did not favour the present system of capitation payment, and he proposed that secondary teachers should be paid a definite salary according to their efficiency, instead of their satari,\ being controlled by the average attendances. Perhaps some better method of financing technical schools could be adopted, and he thought it would be advisable for the Department to confer with those engaged in education. With regard to agricultural instruction, he thought they were not going half enough into this matter. It should be their aim to increase the productiveness of the soil, but nothing in this direction was being done by our university colleges. Our technical education was utterly behind the times. We must increase our exports, and the only way to do that was to teach better farming methods. He also proposed to take action in the direction of assisting technical schools to teach some science on a larger scale.

As for school committees, he considered it would be an ill day when they ceased to have some form of local control and local interest. He was an anti-centralist, and until he saw a better system than the one they had at present he was not going to”' disturb it.