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

419

about are changes in the character of institutions already established.
The additional expense involved is that required to bring about these
changes.
A POLICY OF REQUIRING THAT TEACHERS BE TRAINED.-A consideration which has already been introduced by implication needs to
be made explicit and its essential nature emphasized. The first step in
putting into effect a policy looking toward the creation of a body of
trained teachers for the schools of the Philippine Islands is a definite
provision that none but trained persons will be employed after a given
date. A rigid adherence to this policy and the establishment of the
necessary institutions to make the policy feasible at the date set would
insure the professional training of teachers. The custom of using highschool students and graduates as teachers is so firmly established; the
drawing power of the teacher-training course has been so low; and the
previous enforcement of any selective machinery in appointing teachers
has been so slight that every young person who contemplates a secondaryschool course must be made clearly to understand that such a course
will admit him to teaching only if it be a specific teacher-training course.
Inertia and foresight are respectively so great and so small, that in order
to carry over the conviction that the policy means what it says and that
teaching as an occupation is closed to all who have failed to prepare
themselves for it, employing authorities may be forced to go even to
the length of closing schools temporarily for lack of available trained
personnel. That this extreme measure will not be necessary is devoutly
to be hoped. But the quality of instruction in the primary and intermediate schools is now so deficient, by reason of the lack of proper
teacher training, that a period of reduction in the number of schools
will be preferable to a continuation of the present condition. That the
period will be short is assured by the economic condition of the country
which makes teaching, in spite of all of the drawbacks which are urged
against it, one of the most attractive gainful occupation open to ambitious
young people. If the administration fails to take definite steps in the
direction of this policy of making training a prerequisite for admission
to employment as a teacher, any expectation that the work of the
elementary schools will be markedly improved is unwarranted. If there
is no administrative insistence upon training, to establish the machinery
for giving proper training is useless.
PRESENT TEACHER-TRAINING FACILITIES
ACTUAL FACILITIES.-The first step toward formulating a program
of teacher training is to take stock of the machinery already in operation.
Whether this machinery as it stands offers the best preparation of teachers
which all limiting factors permit should be determined.