A survey of the educational system of the Philippine islands by the Board of educational survey, created under acts 3162 and 3196 of the Philippine Legislature.

TEACHER TRAINING

411

"The decrease in the number of teachers of primary attainments, the
increase in those of first-year attainments, and the gain in high school
and college graduates, indicate the steady progress made in raising the
qualifications of the teaching staff."
The most significant fact brought out by the table is that the trained
teachers-normal-school graduates-were so negligible a factor in the
teacher situation that they receive no mention at all.
To minimize the importance of insisting upon higher attainments for
teachers is not the purpose of this discussion. The extremely low attainments of teachers employed in the early years made this insistence indispensable. It also made comparatively easy a progressive raising of
the standards in this respect. But the fact that progress was made in
the matter of academic attainments gave a false sense of security. The
inference was too easily and uncritically drawn that improvement in
academic attainments marked a satisfactory progressive solution of the
problem of teacher training.
The error made is a fundamental one. The fact that completion
of at least the seven years of the elementary school would be universally
regarded as an indispensable prerequisite for a teacher does not at all
indicate that the person who has satisfied this prerequisite is ready for
teaching. Nor does the fact that persons satisfying this prerequisite
need more education before becoming teachers indicate that just any
sort of additional schooling gives satisfactory preparation for the teaching
career.
Satisfaction over the rising average of teachers' academic training
dulled the sensitiveness of administrators to the fact that teachers were
not receiving proper training. Examination of the materials of instruction in the general high-school course and of the figures in Chart XI a
shows that except as it has possibly been effective in giving greater
command of English, the value of the high-school course for persons
who are to teach in the elementary schools has been greatly over-estimated. Certainly it has given no training comparable in value with
that which would have been obtained from an equal time spent in a
school with a well-planned course of study specifically designed for the
preparation of teachers.
IF FILIPINO CHILDREN ARE TO BE WELL TAUGHT, TEACHERS
MUST BE TRAINED.-It is an ideal not impossible of realization that
aThis chart shows that in the tests given both to seventh-grade pupils and to highschool students, tests covering the essential materials of the elementary-school curriculum,
advancement into the high-school years does not guarantee significantly higher attainment in the materials and skills fundamental to the work of teaching in the elementary
school. The differences between elementary pupils and high-school students which are
shown in the table can be more than adequately accounted for by the greater maturity,
better command of English, and the selected character of the high-school group.