BACKBLOCKS TEACHING.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 January 1921, Page 5

BACKBLOCKS TEACHING.

MINISTER’S NEW SCHEME INFLUENCE IN TARANAKI The Ylinister of Education ha. announced that it is proposed to establish a. service of itinerant teachers for the baekbloeks, with the idea of improving the standard of teaching. At present the backblocks schools are staffed largely with young people who have no better equipment than a sixth standard certificate. Salaries are paid by means of a capitation grant .£l5 per head of the pupils. The result, (the Minister states) is that education in some of the backbloeks places is of a rather indifferent character. It. is now proposed to pay a salary of £250, plus certain allowances, to capable and. experienced young teachers, who will go from family to family and give two or three days in each small centre. It is believed that much better results will be obtained by the individual attention given to, say, half a dozen by a first-class teacher two or three days a week than under the present system. Asked as to how the. new arrangement would affect Taranaki, the chairman of the Education Board (Mr. P. J. White) said he had not yet received details of the scheme. “In my opinion, however,” said Mr. White, “anything that will improve the system of teaching in grade 0 and 1 schools would be a boon”. He said he was not sure whether the proposal outlined by the Minister would meet the ease, but a similar arrangement haji been in vogue in America for years, and in the backbloeks districts it had been very successful in the early settlement of the Western States. At the present time the conditions attaching to the lowest (grade schools meant that the hoard could not get certificated teachers for the position./ Some of the teachers who had gone out uneertificated had done remarkably good work, and, of course, were anxious to secure better appointments. In one school the Taranaki Board had as many as three and four changes in twelve months, and there had also been instances where schools had been closed down for as much as a month at a time because the board could not get anyone to fill the position. In the Taranaki district there are about 40 grade 0 and grade 1 schools, Mr. White stated, and these were the classes in which he. believed the Department would try the new scheme. In the Waitomp electorate there were quite a number of backbloeks schools. The board had also had applications for the establishment of household schools which could not be satisfied, and possibly the latest announcement would result in something being done for household schools.