E.—l2

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(4.) The Native Schools Branch; (5.) School Journal Branch; and (6.) Industrial and Special Schools Branch. The reconstitution of the Department is recommended on the following lines : — (1.) A Director of Education, responsible to the Minister for the general administration of all State education, other than university. (2.) The Native Schools Branch to be abolished. (3.) The Minister to appoint such other officers under the Director of Education as may be required for the efficient administration of the Department. Training of Teachers. The training colleges as at present constituted are doing good work, but it is suggested that in order to provide an adequate supply of trained teachers the maximum number of students allowed by regulation at each college be increased, and that facilities for giving a wider range of experience be provided by associating with each college a number of teachers at neighbouring schools—selected on account of the excellence of their work—to whom the training-college students should be sent for specified periods for the purpose of observation-work. It is also urged that candidates for appointment in secondary schools be required to undergo at least one year's training in a training college, and that for the purpose of affording practice in teaching an approved secondary school in the neighbourhood be associated with the training college. As bearing upon the question of the shortage of teachers, attention has been directed to the fact that suitable candidates for pupil-teachers and probationers are debarred from entering the profession owing to the limitation of the number who may be employed by the Boards. It is therefore recommended that the number of probationers now permitted to be employed be largely increased, and that Education Boards be allowed to allot them to any approved school. If these suggestions are given effect to, it will be unnecessary to comply with the demand made in certain quarters that a number of certificated teachers should be imported from the Old Country. TEACHERS' SALARIES. In spite of the fact that the remuneration paid to teachers has been materially increased during the past ten years, there has been a practically unanimous demand throughout the Dominion for an increase in salaries, and it has been very strongly urged that the prizes at present offered are not sufficiently numerous to attract to the profession the most promising young men in the community. It is recommended that improvements be made by including in Grade X all schools having an average attendance of over 500, and by providing that no certificated teacher in charge of a school above Grade I should be paid less than £150 per annum. Considerable stress has been laid upon the necessity for defining the position of infant-mistress in the higher-grade schools, and we recommend that the salary attached to such position should not be less than that of the second assistant. Teachers in the secondary department of district high schools and assistants in secondary schools are at present underpaid. In view of the high qualifications required from these teachers, and of the long course of study thus entailed, it is suggested that, in the event of the control of secondary schools being placed under Education Boards, a Dominion scale of salaries at an increased rate for these teachers be formulated, and that in it the principle of yearly increments be established. That the special allowance of £30 per annum now made to head teachers of district high schools be discontinued. No deduction should be made from the salary of a teacher who has qualified for a certificate, but who is under twenty-one years of age. STAFFING OF SCHOOLS. It is to be regretted that in many large schools classes of sixty or seventy pupils are in charge of a single teacher. The coming into full operation of the new scale of staffing will remedy the evil to some extent; but even then the ideal of