REVISED SCHOOL REGULATIONS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2305, 14 January 1892, Page 4

REVISED SCHOOL REGULATIONS.

VVellinotojs, Jan. 11. The press reports of the meeting of the New Zealand Educational Institute last week at Christchurch show that the representatives of the public school teachers regard with much faxmr the alterations made in the revised regulations for the inspection and examination of schools, published in the Gazette of October 14th. As the regulations come into force when the schools re-open this month, a digest of the principal alterations will be of some interest. [Regulation IG, of the new regulations, consists of a long composition of the spirit and design of the syllabus, and constitutes in effect a aeries of instructions to inspectors, which should tend to bring about comparative uniformity of interpretation * of the regulations. In the syllabus itself the moat noteworthy change is the removal of grammar from the list of “ pass subjects” to the place of “ class subjects ” in all the standards except Standard 4. This change does not extend to composition, which is retained as a pass subject in all the standards in which it is required. The requirements in geography have been rendered more explicit and definite, and pupils are not expected to know anything of towns of less than 200,000 inhabitants outside of Australasia, unless they are metropolitan towns or ports of some consequence. Sums of unfairly difficult arithmetic are expressly excluded. At given stages the amount of historical knowledge required is restricted to a definite number of events, persons, and .

dates, for each period, and the examination will follow the teachers’ own selection of details for each period. The drawing syllabus is simplified by narrowing model drawing to a few forms of solids, prescribed under tho head of solid geometry, and is also better graduated than it formerly was, and problems in practical geometry (limited to thirty) are set forth in detail. The syllabus of agricultural knowledge proposed by the Education 1 Institute is authorised as alternative with the subject known as “ Elementary Science.” Although the requirements of the syllabus are made more definite than they were, more freedom is granted to teachers, who are expressly allowed in some subjects to frame an alternative programme. The regulations make it clear that the teacher is now bound to classify his pupils with strict regard to the standards which they have passed, and they also show how the difference between pass subjects, on the one hand, and class subjects and additional subjects on the other, can be applied, so as to lighten the burdens of the teachers of small schools. Inspectors are now required to judge more leniently the other school work of girls who learn needlework. Formerly they were at liberty to make concessions, but it was left to their discretion. A new feature in this edition of the code is a rule by which, if any child above the age of eight years is presented in the preparatory class, the teacher is required to give a written explanation of the reason for not presenting the child for examination for the first standard. An additional Order-in-Council issued last week provides for a lenient interpretation of the drawing requirements during the current year, and of all new requirements for the first six months of the year.