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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 41

Boards of Advice

Boards of Advice.

The framers of the Act of 1872, to amend the law relating to

Present position of boards of advice as defined by the Act of 1872.

education, were not prepared to take away all the powers of control which the people of a district, as represented by a school board, had enjoyed. At the same time it seems to have been thought that as the central government was undertaking the whole cost of the schools it ought practically to have the entire management. The powers left to the new boards were, therefore, with one remarkable exception, more nominal than real.

I subjoin the clauses in the Act which define the duties of school boards.

Section XV.—The duties of boards of advice shall be:—
(1.)To direct with the approval of the Minister what use shall be made of school buildings after the children are dismissed from school or on days when no school is held therein; to suspend any school-teacher for misconduct and report the cause of such suspension to the Minister.
(2.)To report on the condition of the schools, as to the premises and their condition, whether new schools are required, and as to the books, furniture, gymnastic appliances, or other requirements.
(3.)To visit the schools from time to time, and to record the number of children present, and their opinion as to the general condition and management of the schools.
(4.)To use every endeavour to induce parents to send their children regularly to school, to compare the attendance of children at school with the roll for the school district, and to report the names of parents who fail or refuse to educate their children or to send them to school.page 82
(5.)To recommend the payment by the Education Department of school fees, or the grant of a scholarship or exhibition in the case of any child displaying unusual ability.

The department has hitherto kept the control of school buildings in its own hands.

The first part of clause 1 relates to a very important point—the use of school buildings when they are not wanted for school purposes. In large towns there is commonly no want of a building that may be hired for balls or lectures or evening classes; and in such places any building is apt to be better than the school, as there is a difficulty about clearing away school benches and desks. But in country districts the school is often the only building in which a meeting of any kind can be held; and the inhabitants are apt to think it unreasonable if they cannot now and again get the use of an empty building for public purposes. The words "to direct with the approval of the Minister" have hitherto been construed to mean that the Minister's sanction must be obtained for any use of the school, but that the board of advice are the persons who ought to apply for it, though not of necessity the only persons whose application will be listened to. The case for the department is that these applications are always replied to without delay, and are habitually granted except where grave reason for withholding consent exists. Boards of advice do not, I think, deny this. But they argue that the right to use the schoolrooms is one which might safely be entrusted to the persons whom their fellow citizens have elected on a board of advice; that the necessity of writing for leave is sometimes inconvenient; and that whenever a schoolmaster has any difference with a board of advice about the use of rooms the department supports the teacher against the board. To let the force of this last point be fully understood I may observe that a few head teachers have undoubtedly the same sort of feeling about their school buildings which clergymen in England have about their churches and churchyards; regard them as freeholds, and dislike any attempt to make use of them for other than school purposes.

An instance of the working of the present system.

An instance will show how the present system works. The board of advice in a large country town applied some months ago for the use of the school buildings for a ball, there being no available room elsewhere in the town. The department gave permission. Immediately after the ball had been held the schoolmaster wrote up complaining that the plaster of the walls had been broken by nails, that one or two benches and locks had been damaged, and that the rooms had not been properly cleaned, so that work on the following day had been delayed a full hour for the school in general, and longer still for the head teacher himself. These charges are not denied by the board, and though there is a rule in such cases that the board shall pay a trifling sum to the head master, as compensation for the extra cleaning required, the sum usually paid would not have met the damage done in this instance. The department accordingly wrote back to say that the board of advice would be refused the use of the room in future. I confess to thinking that both the head teacher and the department displayed a certain want of tact on this occasion. page 83 The head teacher was bound to take the matter up, to see that the mischief wrought was repaired, and to guard against such misadventures in the future. But had he applied at once to the board of advice he would certainly have obtained ample reparation; and had the department refrained from punishing, until reparation was refused, it would not have alienated gentlemen who down to that time had taken a warm interest in the fortunes of the school. As it was, all the damage done was repaired by the delinquents, and a small fine paid in recognition of the mistake committed. But the members of the board of advice felt, naturally as I think, that they had been insulted; the chairman resigned, and though another member has been elected the board, when I visited the town, was still unwilling to act. Meanwhile two assistant masters of the school have applied for and obtained the use of the rooms for evening classes. To this there can be no possible objection; but their application has not been through the board, which is said in the Amending Act "to direct" how the school buildings shall be used after hours.
I see no reason why boards of advice should not be entrusted

Boards of advice should have the control of school buildings out of school hours.

with the control of the school buildings out of school hours, leaving it to the Minister to interfere where the board has abused its power. It is not only desirable that the people of a district should not be debarred the use of a public room, and good to interest them in the preservation and ornamentation of the school, but it is important to establish the principle that a school is built for public uses, not for private control. I am sure teachers at large will gain when their powers over schoolrooms are more precisely defined, even though they are circumscribed; and, when a common occasion of jealousy and quarrels is removed, the department will be relieved the task of answering several hundred letters a year. Now and again difficulties will of course occur; but I do not think any can occur of a more serious kind than the one I have noticed as actually produced by the present system.
While the powers of boards of advice have been circumscribed

The relation of boards of advice to teachers should be more precisely defined.

within the narrowest limits on this matter of the use of school buildings they are very full on a point which affects the self-respect of teachers infinitely more than the control of school buildings. They may "suspend any school teacher for misconduct." Coupled with another clause which gives them the power of visiting the schools from time to time to "record their opinion of the general condition and management," this enactment seems to make the school board supreme over the teaching staff. It has led, I understand, to several unpleasant altercations; but has practically been neutralized by the good sense of the boards generally, and because it is understood that the department sides with the teachers. I confess to thinking that the precise nature of the powers given in so important a matter ought to be clearly defined. For instance, if a right to visit includes the right of asking a teacher questions before his class—why he adopts such a method or gives such an explanation—and such cases have occurred, the teacher's authority will be undermined and the page 84 school demoralized. Again, if the board may suspend a teacher because he is a strict or a lax disciplinarian, or because he is unpunctual in attendance or slovenly in dress, the position of teachers will be unbearable. These are matters with which the inspectors and the department ought to deal. The duties left to boards of advice will still be very important. As representatives of the district, who are responsible for the attendance of the children, and whose negligence may cause the district to be lined, they ought to have greater power than they have of checking attendance. It is to them, in the first instance, not to the department, that the schoolmaster ought to submit his list of attendances. In the same way their absolute right to be present at roll call, and to ask then any questions that the calling over suggests, cannot, I think, be denied. But, except for this purpose, their presence in a school should be only to note silently what is done. They must bear in mind that the presence of strangers always unsettles children and makes all but the oldest teachers nervous; and that silent observation of the way in which work is done is among the most important parts of an inspector's work. They may safely reserve their criticisms to be entered in the book for the purpose, or confidentially communicated to the teacher, or imparted to the inspector at his periodical visits. Their power of suspending should, I think, be limited to cases which might form the subject of an enquiry in the criminal courts, or to such gross breaches of morality as are ranked by common repute in the same category.

Boards should be allowed to refuse to receive a teacher of tainted character; but in other matters the promotion and moving of teachers must be left with the department.

I have spoken in my introductory report of the importance of giving the board of advice right of objection to a teacher of tainted character. Several members of boards have expressed their desire that they should receive notice before a teacher is removed, so that they may be enabled to remonstrate, if one who has secured the confidence of the district is sent away against his own wishes, to a distant post. The matter is one beset with difficulties. I was told, in one case, that the people of the township would have subscribed, if they had been apprised in time, to keep a popular and efficient schoolmaster among them without loss to himself. On the other hand, the department finds it difficult as it is to move teachers, and believes the difficulty would be increased indefinitely if teachers could make interest with the boards of advice to protest against their removal. On the whole, I think, it is safer to leave the department absolute in these matters, and to trust that, when the staff of inspectors is increased and the inspectors are brought into closer communication with the boards of advice, the wishes of the various districts will be understood and consulted as far as possible at the head office.

Boards should determine the hour of recess and the holiday times.

It is, I think, the board of advice who should decide whether the time of recess is to be an hour or an hour and a half during the day, and (with some limitation) when it is to begin. I found one instance, where a head teacher, otherwise deservedly esteemed, was at war with his board of advice, because he liked a short recess and an early breaking-up of school, while parents complained that their children could not get home and dine in an page 85 hour. So again, it is the board of advice who, within certain limits, should fix the holidays. A week at Christmas is, I fear, necessary everywhere, but in Bairnsdale where the hopping time lasts over February and March there is a clear gain in transferring as much as possible of the vacation to those months; while about Koroit May would probably be the month when holidays would be most acceptable to parents.
The department, I know, holds that boards of advice at present

General propriety of giving increased power to boards of advice.

receive every attention, and are invested on application with every power they seem capable of using well; in fact, that it is their own fault, if they do not already do all, or almost all, that I wish to place in their hands. I can only answer that boards of advice in general do not share this opinion; and that legally they have no power, of themselves, which private persons in a district do not possess, except that of writing their opinions in school records, and the doubtful one of suspending teachers. The better the men the more unwilling they will be to play at power. Unless, therefore, some grave reason can be shown for forcing them to correspond with the head office whenever they want the use of a room, or whenever a school fence needs repairs, or to get instructions when children are to be summoned, I venture to think that these matters and others such are better left in their hands. The school boards in England and the district committees in Massachusetts exercise incomparably greater powers than those our own boards will receive if my scheme be adopted in its entirety. We have centralized ever more than France, where the departmental council, though responsible to the Minister, is a governing body.

I subjoin a scheme of the powers I think boards of advice ought to receive; and which might, I presume, be given by the Governor in Council, in the same way that rules for the payment and training of teachers have been framed.

Duties and Powers of Boards of Advice.

The duties of boards of advice shall be—

1. To assign the district to every school within their the jurisdiction, defining its boundary; and to hang up a map or description, or both these, authenticated by the signatures of the chairman and of the correspondent, in the town hall or district post-office.

2. To exchange districts with one another, duly notifying the Minister of the changes made, and with power on the part of the Minister to disallow the changes.

3. To settle whether a child is or is not within the statutable distance from a State school.

4. To hear appeals when a schoolmaster refuses to let children be transferred to another school during the school half-year.

5. On the first Monday of every month to receive rolls for the last month from every school in the district, with separate truant lists showing the children who have fallen short of the legal page 86 number of attendances, and with the foils of the absence books showing the reasons, given by the parents.

6. To order the truant officer of the district, or the police if the truant officer cannot attend, to prosecute parents who have offended against the provisions of the Education Act.

7. To communicate with the department at the end of every three months, forwarding tabular statements of attendances, and explaining if there have been any special reasons to make the attendance in the district irregular.

8. To expend so much of a petty cash fund, not exceeding £5 a school for every school where there are more than one, or £10 where there is only one, as is needed for temporary repairs and improvements such as are not allowed for in the maintenance fund; for instance, on fencing, mending a roof or tank, planting trees or putting up a verandah.

9. To receive all fines levied in the district by the police magistrate for truancy, with power to spend them on the objects above enumerated or in prizes to the school children of the district.

10. To decide whether they will receive into the district a teacher who has been suspended during the last year or at any time removed from his post for misconduct, the department being bound to give the board notice beforehand in all such cases-.

11. To enter any school and watch the ordinary work, not interrupting it; to inspect the lists after roll call; to make entries in the book kept for the purpose as to the punctual attendance of teachers and pupils, and as to the general efficiency of the school. To be present at the inspector's visits, having notice beforehand when he will come; and to be present also at the half-yearly or yearly examinations by the head teacher.

12. Where a charge of a trifling kind is brought against a teacher to communicate with the department and require that an inspector be commissioned to investigate it within two months.

To act as a board of enquiry by themselves, if both parties agree to this in writing, in which case the decision of the board shall be final, and the department shall take action upon it.

Where a serious charge is brought, such as of immoral conduct or peculation, to communicate with the department and obtain a special court, suspending the teacher meantime till the department has taken action.

13. To determine the time at which the midsummer and midwinter holidays begin, with the reservation that the former shall not begin later than Christmas Day. In cases approved of by the Minister to transfer a period, not exceeding a month, of vacation from the holidays as actually distributed to some other time that may be more convenient for the district.

14. To determine whether the time of recess in the middle of the day is to be an hour or an hour and a half, and whether it is to begin at 12, 12.30, or 1.

15. To amalgamate, where it shall seem desirable, any two schools within their district in Class G on the half-time principle, drawing one and three-fifths salaries and reasonable costs of trans- page 87 port from the department in each such case of amalgamation; or to amalgamate schools in the way indicated by co-operation between the boards of two different districts. But notice of such amalgamations must be given to the department; and all payments of salary shall be made in the usual course through the department.

16. To decide whether a school shall be closed through fear of infection, or to exempt the parents of an outlying district from attendance for a time in cases where their children would pass through an infected quarter. But the board must instantly apprise the Minister of the action it has taken in such cases; and the Minister may overrule it.

17. To exempt children from twenty per cent, of the statutory attendances in cases where one parent is dead, or permanently absent from home, or disabled by illness, and where it appears that the services of the child or children are needed at home.

18. To direct what use shall be made of school buildings after the children are dismissed from school or on days when no school is held therein.

19. To meet within a week of election and elect a chairman and correspondent, whose names shall be gazetted. In case a chairman or correspondent resigns or vacates office to elect his successor at the time of his resignation or vacating, or within two weeks of the notification that he has resigned or vacated. In case the board neglects to do this the Governor in Council may nominate a chairman and correspondent.