MINUTES, &c. (No. 1.) At the Council Chamber, Whitehall, the 20th day of BY THE LORDS OF THE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, OF HER SUPPLEMENTARY MINUTE relating to Queen's Scholars, Apprentices, and Certificated and Registered Teachers, and Lecturers in Training Schools.* THEIR Lordships had under consideration so much of the Minute dated the 21st of December 1846 as relates to the support of Normal schools. Their Lordships also considered the minutes and instructions in force for awarding Queen's scholarships, for issuing certificates of merit, and for augmenting the salaries of the students and other candidates so certificated when employed as teachers in schools under inspection. Their Lordships, having these particulars before them, proceeded to consider certain complaints alleged against the present system, to the effect that, 1. Certificates are granted without sufficient guarantees for practical ability in teaching, and such ability is not sufficiently rewarded or encouraged. 2. The training schools are maintained inadequately, and with difficulty; they are not fully occupied, nor are they occupied always with the class of students best adapted for training. 3. A large proportion of the pupil-teachers who have completed their term of service do not enter the training schools. 4. The standard of instruction in the training schools might be raised advantageously, with especial reference to the subjects of elementary instruction. This Minute, which was presented to Parliament in the "Minutes of 1853-4" (Vide vol. i., page 23), has been revised, as regards the 12th section, by a Minute dated 28 June 1854, presented in the same volume, page 35. 5. No adequate encouragement is offered to prolong the continuance of students under training beyond a single year. Resolved,-1. To remove the limitation at present imposed on the admission of Queen's scholars. 2. To renew Queen's scholarships for a second year to all Queen's scholars of one year's standing who shall pass a satisfactory examination at the end of it. 3. To allow such a further number of Queen's scholarships to duly qualified candidates as, with the number reserved for the existing Queen's scholars, shall occupy the whole of the accommodation in each college under inspection reported by the principal to be unoccupied by other students after the following Christmas. Such a report would be called for about the beginning of November in each year. Their Lordships will require to be satisfied with the provision made for lodging and training the entire number of students. 4. To promote in training schools the study of the subjects proper to elementary instruction, their Lordships will grant augmentations of salary of 1007. annually to such resident lecturers as shall receive, independently of those augmentations, salaries of not less than 1501. annually (this sum may include an allowence of 50l. for board and lodging), provided that each lecturer in respect to whom such an augmentation of salary is granted shall afford evidence satisfactory to their Lordships of his attainments in one, or at the most two, of the branches of knowledge enumerated below, and of skill in adapting them to the purposes of elementary instruction. 1. History. 2. English literature. 3. Geography. 5. Applied mathematics. In judging of the claims of candidates for such augmentations, their Lordships will seek the advice of persons eminent for their attainments in these several branches of knowledge. Their Lordships will not grant more than one such augmentation of salary in any training school, when the number of students in residence does not exceed thirty, nor more than two where the number does not exceed sixty, nor more than three such augmentations in any case. 5. An exercise in drawing will in future form part of each examination of the students. Their Lordships will seek the assistance of the Department of Science and Art in settling and testing this exercise. In determining certificates, considerable weight will be attached to proficiency in this art. 6. The indentures of all pupil-teachers apprenticed after the 1st of January 1854 will be made to end at Christmas. If the examinations fall in the first half of the year, then at the fifth Christmas thence ensuing; but, if the examinations fall in the second half of the year, then at the sixth Christmas thence ensuing. Thus the indentures of all pupil-teachers admitted in January-June 1854 will expire at Christmas 1858; and of all pupil-teachers admitted in July-December 1854, at Christmas 1859. The annual payments will by this arrangement be continued up to the date fixed for the end of the apprenticeship, so as in all cases to comprehend the time of examination for Queen's scholarships. As a provisional measure, to meet the case of apprentices admitted before the 1st of January 1854, their Lordships will consider recommendations by Her Majesty's Inspectors to con tinue the rate of payment for the fifth year during the period to elapse between the end of that year and the 31st of the following December; such payments to be made as soon as the apprentice shall have presented himself as a candidate for a Queen's scholarship. In consideration of this provision, their Lordships will, after the 1st of January 1854, cancel so much of the Minute dated 25 July 1850 as allows apprentices to compete for Queen's scholarships in the course of the fifth year's service. In schools where the examination falls in the first half of the year, the office of pupil-teacher will be vacant during the period between Christmas and the date fixed for the examination. In such cases the duties may be discharged by the candidate or candidates for the vacancy; and my Lords will allow a sum proportionate to the time and to the number of vacancies for remunerating the services rendered,-such sum to be distributed at the discretion of the managers. In schools where the examination falls in the second half of the year, new pupil-teachers may be appointed, on the reports of Her Majesty's Inspectors, prospectively, to replace those whose apprenticeship will expire at the following Christmas. 7. Their Lordships will allow, without further examination, a Queen's scholarship of 25l. to all assistants who shall have acquitted themselves satisfactorily during three years, pursuant to the Minute of 23 July 1852. Applications for such scholarships must be transmitted to their Lordships' secretary through the principal of some training school under inspection who is willing to receive the applicant, from the 1st of the following January, as one of the Queen's scholars then to be allowed. 8. In schools where the average attendance exceeds 100, their Lordships will apply the Minute of 23 July 1852, without requiring that an assistant shall be taken to be in lieu of two pupil-teachers. In such schools their Lordships will allow one assistant teacher, in addition to one pupil-teacher, for every 100 children. 9. In schools under certificated teachers, where apprentices have obtained Queen's scholarships, their Lordships will, on the recommendations of Her Majesty's Inspectors, consider the propriety of allowing a larger number of pupil-teachers than in other schools. 10. The examinations of the candidates for Queen's scholarships will be separated from that of the students, being held for three days in the week preceding that in which the students' examination is to begin. As many qualified students will be nominated (in the order of merit) as shall answer to the total number of vacancies in all the training schools. The whole number will be comprised in a single list, and each Queen's scholar so nominated will be at liberty to go to any of the training schools under inspection the authorities of which may consent to receive him. The principal of each training school will be called upon to make a return to their Lordships of the names of his Queen's scholars for the ensuing year, within twenty-one days after the date of publishing the list. 11. The students in residence will be classed, at the end of each year, according to the result of the examinations passed by them, but will not be certificated. No certificate of merit as a teacher will, after the examinations in December 1853, be granted to the student of a training school until he shall have been for two years in charge of the same elementary school, and shall have been twice reported on as the teacher of it by Her Majesty's Inspector. Whether he is to be entitled to a certificate or not, and of what class, is to be determined by the tenor of those reports, and by the result of his examination previous to quitting the training school. If the first report be favourable, he will be paid for the first year on the scale of the lowest class. If the second report be favourable, his augmentation and class of certificate will be fixed for the next five years. After which interval, and so on from time to time, the certificate and augmentation will be open to revision, according to the character of the intermediate reports. The value of the certificate will not be fixed in the first instance higher than the first division of the third class for any student who shall have resided less than two years at a training school under inspection. 12. The grants to each training school, according to the class obtained by the students in the examination, will be made upon the following scale :-* 13. Their Lordships rely upon the foregoing provisions, in extension of their Minutes of 1846, to fill a constantly increasing number of elementary schools with certificated teachers. There must, however, for a considerable period, remain a number of teachers disqualified by age for passing the examination for certificates, as well as a number of schools not in a position to obtain certificated teachers, in those parts of the country more particularly which it is the object of the Minute of 2 April 1853 to reach. Their Lordships will institute, therefore, a class of registered, as distinguished from certificated, teachers. An examination will be held (on the same plan as the late Easter examinations for certificates of merit) by Her Majesty's Inspectors, at convenient places throughout the country, at some time to be fixed, in 1854 and in each following year. The examination will last only three days. The candidates will not be classed, but only passed or rejected. The examination will be confined to simple questions in the following subjects :- 1. The Holy Scriptures, and the Catechism and Liturgy of the Church of England (in schools connected with the Church of England). 2. English history. 3. Geography. 4. Arithmetic (including vulgar and decimal fractions). 5. English grammar and composition. 6. The theory and practice of teaching. The object of the examination will be to ascertain sound, if humble, attainment. * Vide Minute of 28 June 1854, in Minutes of 1853-4, vol. i., page 35. |