CORRESPONDENCE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 109, 16 January 1912, Page 7

CORRESPONDENCE.

THE SCHOOL TEACHERS' EXAMINATIONS. Sir,—Taranaki is an isolated corner of the Dominion and is lacking in many 'vantages enjoyed by other centres of education. There is no training college, while there are very few schools in which pupil-teachers are coached by headmasters, trained in methods of teaching, and kept at study from Standard VI. up to the examination for the teachers' certificates. It is an easy matter to secure a B.A. or an M.A. degree if study is steadily pursued from Standard VI. in the primary school, through the high school and university. Anyone failing who has had such advantages would rightly be classed amongst the dunces. A number of the candidates for .examination in this corner of the Dominion have been employed by the Education Board years after those candidates had left school, and consequently out of condition for close study. They are engaged day after day in teaching, and evening after evening preparing school work. Many of the subjects studied at school are almost forgotten, but in order to continue in the teaching a certificate must be obtained. Without aid from the Education Department, under most trying conditions in the backblocks, working under most serious drawbacks, the candidates begin afresh to study. When the examination day comes round they compete with others who have had every advantage from babyhood to manhood. I may mention that many of the young girl teachers are really broken down in health, and it is sad to see so many wearing spectacles. I men: :••.:! those tilings because I wish your rea to understand that our young teaci' ••; 'are deserving of sympathy and supp. ■; in their difficult, uphill, piucky fight for certificates, and this sympathy and support ought in the first place to be expected from the Education Board's officers—the inspectors. Now, when we remember that last year the names of the unsuccessful candidates were published in the papers—held up to scorn, as it were—we must protest against such an injustice occurring this year. t No thought of the effect of such an exposure of the discipline of schools taught by the published failures, or of the natural shrinking from such publicity which all have, entered the minds of those who last year were responsible for the publication of that list. During the examination the candidate does not put his or her name on the papers of answers. A number, known only to the candidate and the department, is used. This, no doubt, is an excellent arrangement which prevents any, possibility of favoritism. There is, however, danger of another injustice to candidates, in that their answers may be opened, read, laughed at and shown round for the amusement of supervisors and to the cruel disheartening of not only the sneered at one, but of all who witness such a scene—for whose paper is safe ? Now, if an inspector happens to be a supervisor, matters are jvorse still, because young teachers, above all things, dislike'being sneered at by the man whose business it is to help and sympathise with weak young teachers. Should such a, thing as I hav« mentioned happen at an examination centre I may safely say very few local candidate would ever sit at that centre again, but, at whatever ; cost, would jpurney to some other examination centre. Such a thing might happen anywhere, though it is not at all likely, because the supervisors have nothing to do with the answers of the candidates except to send them on to Wellington. And, besides, here in Taranaki we are blf==c-! with supervisors who are gentlemen who would not show off superior knowledge at the expense of faulty young teachers.—l am. etc. A SYMPATHISER.