TRAINING COLLEGES

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 78, 28 April 1909, Page 2

TRAINING COLLEGES

■ SPEECH BY THE MINISTER,

By Telegraph.—Press Association. Duncdin, Last Night.

A new training college, in which there ore about 100 students, was officially opened by the Minister of Education this afternoon. The Minister, in tile course of his speech, emphasised the importance oi the training colleges, and went on to give particulars of the votes for training colleges, mentioning tuni since 1003 the vote lias increased from £BOOO to .02,000. Under the present regulations, it was contemplated tuat each training college should have 100 students in attendance. The allowances and other inducements oll'ered to students at the training college were far more liberal than oll'ered to students aiivwhcrc else in the world. At Ihe i-iU pf'l'.MlS there were at all the four colleges 253 student*, of whom 77 were men and 211 women. Towards tais number Wellington contributed HO, Duucdin 7S, and Auckland .">O. The amount granted for buildings specially intended for training colleges since the inception scheme of 1(104 had been t2.i,000 —over COIIOO each to Auckland aid Duncdin and nearly i'-tiOOO to Wellington. The amount exprnded on the training colleges during the past financial year, exclusive of that spent on buildings, was ,C 25,721. This total provides not only for efficient training of over 2811 teachers, but for the instruction ot about 1000 children in attendance at the practising schools. The Minister went on to say that a s i-he new Act comes into operation more adidt trained teachers will be required in the schools. In fact, in the next few years from 700 to 7,">0 more teachers at least will be required. U is therefore desireablc that the number of students in each College should lie not less t.ian 100, the limit now fixed. The number of students trained during the past live years was in 1004, 7.">: 1!)0.">, 221; lOOfi, 20-1; 1007, 2.)2; BIOS, 2SB—a total of 1101, of whom 542 were females and 259 males. In conclusion he suggested that training colleges might act as centres for collecting and distributing amongst schools sets of illustrative material for object lessons, material that would show the natural products and manufactured articles of our own and other countries.