§ MR. LEWISasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether the pupil teachers who have been instructed in the 26 district and minor model schools are included in the 7,041 teachers who have been recently reported by the Commissioners of National Education as untrained; if so, would he state in what respects the training in Marlborough Street differs from that afforded in the district model schools; have the Commissioners themselves recognised the efficiency of the district model schools as training institutions in appointing persons who had been pupil teachers therein as head 456 teachers in their model schools, although they had never been trained in Marlborough Street; whether the district model schools were originally established to train young persons for the office of teacher; and, if he would state whether they have, since their establishment, been in any way altered in their character so as to unfit them for this office?
§ MR. TREVELYANSir, 268 ex-pupil teachers of model schools were included in the 7,041 teachers recently reported as untrained. The Commissioners have occasionally appointed some persons—some of them pupil teachers, and some not—of high acquirements and tried efficiency to the charge of model schools. For several years these appointments have been determined by competitive examinations. There is no rule excluding untrained teachers from this competition; but the preliminary examinations as pupil teachers do not enter into the question of the candidates' claims for admission to the competition. The district model schools were established with the object of giving teachers a preliminary training preparatory to their entering the training establishments. This was the distinct recommendation borne out by the Minute of 1835, before the establishment of the model schools; and the Commissioners observed that it explicitly shows that from the earliest period it was held that mere model school training could not supersede the necessity for professional training in the training institution under a properly qualified professoriat.