CO129-623-6 Education Department- annual report 1-5-1950 - 31-12-1950 — Page 55

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was that of 630,000 children in school and even so there is more than that number for whom to find places and over it all rests the shadow of the bandit war and its financial shadow for more than 300,000 dollars a day is being diverted from constructive community services, the price, as I was so often told, of one English school a day.

As the recognition of the value of education rises and as the demand for places in school increases so the number of expatriate staff for one reason or another has declined, so everyone is working beyond his or her capacity and against difficulties and frustrations that command my deepest sympathy.

1.

Malaya has developed a form of training teachers which I hesitate to dignify by the name training for it involves little more than weekend classes for men and women already working as unqualified teachers. The only permanent full-time residential teacher-training is provided in the Sultan Idris Training College for Malay men, where about 400 are in training at a time, and at the Malacca Malay Women's Training College where new buildings will enable some 150 women to be in training at once. At the moment the approach to the training of women at Malacca is more progressive and modern in outlook than that of the men in Tanjong Malim. However the appointment of staff experienced in modern English method and practice and the appointment of Malay staff who must have English as a language, will help to meet the needs of the time.

2. There is a tremendous demand for oral and written English from all races in all parts. It is obviously the language both of unity and of progress.

3. Some of the best education in the country is being given in the preparatory departments of some of the Government English schools for boys. There are two or three very well qualified and extremely able women: "Supervisors of Primary Schools". The only tragedy is that this first-class education is by force of circumstances available to comparatively few and mainly to boys at that.

4. It is difficult to reconcile the demand for education on the one hand with the limitations of numerous schools on the other. I cannot very happily endure the sight of anything from 1,200 to 2,000 girls packed into mission schools. It was too reminiscent of conveyor belts in factories. What is needed is a progressive educational outlook among some of the expatriate mission staffs so that as much freedom and educational experiment as possible is permitted to penetrate into these big institutions.

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5. One of the best schools that I visited in Malaya without any shadow of doubt was St. George's Girls School Penang, and the quality that makes me comment on it has nothing to do with the buildings, which are hopeless. Here is a school with & fine tradition, with its old girls living in all parts of the Federation, with its numbers nearing the thousand mark, with a delightful group of post-certificate girls preparing for the University, crammed into highly unsuitable buildings which are so small that it takes the Headmistress 4 morning assemblies to meet all her girls during the week. I am glad to say however that the claims of this school, I understand, have top priority

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