EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 315, 5 January 1909, Page 2

EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTE

ANNUAL CONFERENCE. By Telegraph.— Press Association. Dunedin, Last Nigln. The annual conference ol the New Zealand Educational Institute , yencd here to-day. The president (Mr. W. Newton, of Thames I was in the chair. In the course of his address on "The ideal for teachers," the president said if tjit- Stale wauls an ideal for teachers it must pay salaries commensurate with the demand it makes upon teachers. It must give reasonable prospect of advancement and security of tenure to all who lender failliful and ellicient advice, and it will do well to call to this work men and women who will undertake if because of its nation-building possibilities ami opportunities. The annual report stated the membership at the beginning of Ihe year was ISUi, and at the end stood at 2152, an increase of 3:17. The executive considered it desirable to gel a definite pronouncement on the question of the power of an Education Board to transfer a teacher with consequent loss in status and salary. The executive recommended that the future policy should he to maintain and safeguard the. present condition of teachers, to protect teachers in the proper discharge of their duties, and to realise more fully the educational aspect of the Institute's work. The report was adopted.

A resolution was carried in favor of a modification and re-arrangement of arithmetic prescribed for various standards and asking the Minister to take prompt steps in this direction. It was also decided to suggest to the Department that the printing and issuing of text cards in arithmetic and English hediscontinued. A further resolution was that the attention of the InspectorGeneral be drawn to the difficulty and vagueness of text cards in English in the upper standards of primary schools.