EDUCATION SYSTEM

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 53, Issue 16, 29 October 1932, Page 8

EDUCATION SYSTEM

DECENTRALISATION URGED.

BOARDS OF PROVINCIAL CHARACTER. (Special to the “Guardian.”) CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. The decentralisation of the control of education by the appointment of boards controlling districts of a provincial character is the main note of a report drawn up by the Canterbury District Standing Committee on Education.

This committee, consisting of representatives of all the educational bodies in the Canterbury district, lias had under consideration the question of the unification of the control of education in tho Dominion, the reform of the present system to remove its anomalies, and the incorporation in a new system of features borrowed from other countries and chiefly from England. In a brief historical sketch the committee explains how various anomalies in the New Zealand system arose and how, mainly because of the absence of local finance, the Government has been able gradually to centralise virtually all the functions of direction and control in the Education Department.

It proposes that the district boards should be eight or nine in number, that Auckland should be divided into two districts and Marlborough divided, the northern part being attached to "Wellington and the southern to Canterbury. Each school, whether primary or post-primary, should have its own school council, elected mainly as tho present committees are elected, and that the hoard should he representative of the school councils, the university college board, school staffs and non-departmental schools, and that each board should have the power to co-opt members who have special educational knowledge of experience. It is suggested that the departmental control should be revised that the Minister should haye the assistance of a council of departmental representatives and that the Department’s powers should function to ensure a minimum standard of efficiency, to prevent duplication of services, to classify teachers, appoint inspectors to carry out the inspection of the schools in cooperation with the district hoards, to pay the teachers and to distribute capitation allowances in special grants through the district hoards. The general idea is that the work of education should he carried out through the district hoards and always with the advice of and after consultation with the school councils and the district boards.

The report, which contains brief summaries of the control systems of Australia, the United States and England, is signed by Dr. James Hight, as chairman, and Ah* S, R. Evison, as secretary.