OUR NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION.
Mataura Ensign, Volume 17, Issue 17, 11 June 1895, Page 4
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OUR NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION.
TO THE EDITOR. flß,— lt appears that the Government havn made an effort to reduce the public expenditure, aDd have given pnblic utterarce that there is to be no increase of salaries lo aroy of the public servants dming the pn suit year. There is one dtpartunenL where retrenchment might be carried out with a benefit, and that is by abolishing the vhole of U c Education Boards of tho co'ony, and ao Baying the already overburdened taxpayer. We have already in the Education Oepariment an Inspcctor-Geneial. Why not appoint two commissioners with h ; m, and the Minister of' .Education of the day as Chairman ? and thereby save several thousands of the public revenue. As day by day there is a growing demand for an extension of school accommodation in newly settled localities, thi saving could be devoted to erecting coat.tiy schools for the benefit of the'bard-^oikiDg settler?, as at present when an application is made to any of the Boards the inevitable reply is " No fund*, and there are not BtfEhient children to pay a teachei's salary," with the result that children so eituaied have to be left to grow up in our miflsc without being privileged lo enter a school. By the plan I suggest, theee children would be placed in a position rendering thiin able t> transact ordinary every-day busmen of life. Take the late Railway Co nmisßioners : they were able «o deal with between 1.16,000,000 and L 16,000,000 of the public property of the colony, and they had under ihem nearly, if not quite, as many employes sb there are under the various Boards of the colony. Let the twu most competent inspectors be appointed comnrssionKis with the iiev Mr Hab'.ns, and between the commissioners and the local school committee* all the functions of the service could bo faitnfully filled. The commussioneis should be a non-political body, or as far as possiblo removed from political iufluence. The commissioners could act as a Board of Examination, for all teachers entering the service. Those appointed should receive their schosls according to merit. All those who have our free and Becular system of educatior at heart will bee the necessity for a saving, and at the srme time extending its boon to the hard-working outlying settlers. It this course is adopted, it will prolong the present system intacf, otherwise, di i content may crop up, and thereby play into the hands of the enemies of the present system,— l am, etc., Settleb Wendonside, June 6, 1895.
