REGULATIONS of the Otago Education Board,
for the Examination and Classification of
District School Teachers. February 29, 1872.

1. No election of a teacher shall be deemed valid until such teacher shall have produced to the Board a certificate of fitness or competency granted by the Board.

2. Certificates of competency will be divided into four classes, and will be granted upon examination by the Inspector of Schools, or other examiners appointed by the Board; but all teachers holding certificates of qualification from the Committee of Privy Council on Education in Great Britain, the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland, the Examiners under the Parochial Schools Act in Scotland, or of an authorised Education Board of a British Colony, or of a Province in New Zealand, shall, without examination, be entitled to a certificate from the Board, corresponding as nearly as possible to the certificates so held by them respectively: provided that such teachers be of good character and sound health, as required under Regulation 4.

3. A certificate of the first class will be granted only to teachers of the second class in consideration of good service under the Board for not less than five years. A certificate of the second class will entitle a teacher to hold the office of head master or schoolmistress in a Main School, or of second master or schoolmistress in a Grammar School. A certificate of the third class will entitle a teacher to hold the office of master or mistress in a Side School, or of assistant in a Main School. Certificates of the fourth (or probationers’) class will be granted to persons under thirty years of age who have not previously been trained or employed as School Teachers, but who may successfully pass the examination prescribed by the Board for certificates of the second or third class, and who may appear to possess qualifications likely to render them efficient school teachers. The holder of a probationer’s certificate will be entitled to fill provisionally the office of a Side School teacher, or of assistant in a Main School. The holder of a first class certificate must be at least twenty-six years of age; of a second class certificate, at least twenty-one years of age; and of a third or fourth class certificate, at least eighteen years of age.

4. Examinations will be held periodically at Dunedin, and such other central places as may from time to time be appointed by the Board (due notice of which will be given), when all candidates who present themselves for examination, and who are of good moral character and sound health, will be entitled to be examined in the literary subjects required under Regulation 15.

5. Every candidate for a certificate, after successfully passing the examination under Regulation 4, and producing satisfactory evidence of having been successfully engaged in the work of school teaching for a period of two years (at the least), will be entitled to a Provisional Certificate in the second or third class according to merit, but before receiving a permanent certificate of competency the candidate must as a teacher continuously engaged in a school or schools under the Board, obtain two favourable reports from the Inspector, with an interval of one year between them; and if the School Inspection to which the first of these reports relates be not preceded by service in the same school of three months (at the least), then a third report at an interval of one year after the second report shall be required. If the second (or third) report be favorable, a permanent certificate will be granted.

6. Every candidate for a certificate who successfully passes the examination under Regulation 4, but who is unable to produce satisfactory evidence of having been successfully engaged in the work of school teaching for a period of two years (at the least), will be entitled to a certificate of the fourth (or probationer’s) class only, but every such candidate, who, as a teacher or assistant teacher continuously engaged in a school or schools under the Board for a period of three years (at the least), shall obtain three favorable reports from the Inspector, with an interval of one year between any two of such reports, will be entitled to receive a permanent certificate of the second or third class, according to merit.

7. Holders of certificates of the third class will be raised to the second class only by re-examination, and the Inspector’s favorable report as to fidelity and success in the work of teaching.

8. The examination for certificates will be open to uncertificated teachers at present employed in schools under the Board, as well as to persons not yet so employed; but until March 1st, 1874, certificates of the third class may be granted without examination in respect of scholarship, to uncertificated teachers at present in charge of schools under the Board who satisfy the following conditions:—

(1.) They must at date of application

(a.) Be above 35 years of age,

(b.) Have been school teachers at least three years,

(c.) Present certificates of good character from their school committees.

(2.) The Inspector must report

(a.) That they are efficient teachers;

(b.) That the children under instruction in their schools have passed at least three creditable examinations in reading, writing, and arithmetic.

9. After March 1st, 1874, no uncertificated teacher shall hold office under the Board.

10. Pupil teachers who have completed their engagements with credit may, upon special recommendation by the Inspector, and upon consideration of their last examination papers, receive a provisional certificate of the third class.

11. The Board may at any time recall, suspend, or reduce a certificate (whether provisional or permanent) held by any teacher, if convinced after full inquiry that such teacher’s character, conduct, and attention to duty have been unsatisfactory.

12. The subjects in which candidates for certificates will be examined are divided into two classes—essential and optional. The former class embraces those more elementary branches with which it is necessary that every school teacher should be well acquainted. Reading, writing, English grammar and composition, arithmetic, geography, and British history are of this class, to which must be added as being equally requisite, acquaintance with the principles of school management, and if possible, military drill and the rudiments of vocal music and linear drawing. Schoolmistresses should be acquainted with needlework and the principles of household management.

13. The following is a list of the optional subjects in which candidates for certificates may be examined. The English language and literature, with composition; ancient and modern history; logic; mental science; political economy; physical geography and popular astronomy; chemistry; geology and mineralogy; botany; zoology and physiology; elementary mathematics (algebra, Euclid, and plain trigonometry); elementary natural philosophy; Latin, Greek, French, and other modern languages; music; drawing; stenography, and such other subjects as may from time to time be added by the Board.

14. Every candidate passing a satisfactory examination in the essential subjects prescribed for class two and in at least four of the optional subjects, whereof the English language and literature, Latin, or elementary mathematics must be one, will be entitled to receive a certificate of competency, with first or second class honors. An examination for honors will be held at Dunedin in the month of January in each year. Intending candidates must send their names to the