The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 20, 1904. THE NEW EDUCATION SYLLABUS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXV, Issue 94, 20 April 1904, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 20, 1904. THE NEW EDUCATION SYLLABUS.

- ..- i ii m For the cause that lacks aasUtanoe, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that ice can do.

A copy of the Primary Schools Syllabus is now before us; and as these regulations represent the outcome of the conference between the School Inspectors and the Inspector-General in Wellington! last February, they should be a valuable I contribution towards the educational progress of the colony. It will be remembered that last year the Education Department issued a syllabus seriously modifying the course of instruction in our primary schools, which was to have come into force in January thi3 year. This syllabus had been approved by the Parliamentary Education Committee, on the understanding that it embodied the recommendations of the Inspectors' Conference held three years ago. Unfortunately, the new regulations were far from representing the desires of the inspectors and primary school teachers, and as soon as they were published they were at once subjected to vigorous criticism from one end of the colony to the other. Everybody agreed that the intentions of the scheme were excellent, and that in spirit and purpose it meant a great advance on the somewhat antiquated methods of instruction to which many of our teachers still cling. But IK one with any experience of the difficulties under which our primary education system is conducted could look at the syllabus without being convinced that it was far too comprehensive and exacting to be of much practical value. When the outcry against the new syllabus reached Ministerial ears, Mr Seddon, with his customary good sense, decided that the new regulations should be held over till June, and that in the meantime tney should be discussed and reported upon by the Council of the New Zealand Educational Institute and by the Inspectors' Conference. This has been done, and even those ■ who will not be satisfied by the new syllabus have at least the satisfaction of knowing that it has been freely discussed by our best educational authorities, and that it differs materially from the somewhat vague and irresponsible scheme which the Education Department published last year. We need not go into detail as to the complaints urged against the syllabus in its original form. But it should interest our readers to recall the report of the Auckland inspectors forwarded to the Board of Education when the syllabus was first brought under their notice. While recognising the "high educational aims" evidenced in the syllabus, our inspectors felt compelled to protest against the excessive amount of work entailed by the new regulations. "The course of study," says their report, "is now made more exacting in schools of all grades, and will prove especially burdensome in smaller schools. Thoroughness of work, which is indispensable to any sort of educative training, will be more difficult to secure than heretofore. The amount of work expected in science and geography cannot possibly be overtaken in the time available for the study of these subjects." The inspectors conclude by expressing their conviction that "a spirit of cram cannot be exorcised from the elementary .school so long as the burden of work imposed on teachers and pupils continues to be excessive"; and this criticism, we think, was thoroughly justified by character of the syllabus in its original shape. Apart from the inordinate quantity of work prescribed, the worst weakness of the new regulations was the amount of discretion that they left to inspectors. It was the opinion of the Council of the Educational Institute that "the syllabus will prove burdensome to the teachers, or otherwise, according to its interpretation by inspectors." It is manifestly unjust to our teachers, depending, as they must,'upon the reports of the inspectors, to leave important questions as to the range and nature of teaching in certain subjects entirely to the discretion of officials who at best can only take a cursory survey of the work done. The Institute therefore recommended that " a very definite code be

drawn up for the guidance of inspectors and examiners." We gather from the remarks made by Mr Hogben at the Inspectors' Conference that he hardly attached enough importance to this serious objection, and it is to be hoped thatj by the new syllabus this cause of com-1 plaint at least has been finally removed. I It would be impossible within any ! practicable space to compare the new regulations in detail with the original draft. But as far as we can gather from a necessarily casual examination, the more important recommendations of the Inspectors' Conference and the Educa* tional Institute have been adopted. It was the opinion of Inspector Goyen, of Otago, that there was little in the first syllabus that was not admirable if only the school age could be extended by two or three years. As* matters stood, however, the chief object of the conference was to cut everything superfluous out of the syllabus. With this intention, they passed a series of resolutions that materially reduced the amount of work to be done in drawing, geography, science, and history. Much of the topographical part of geography was rejected as burdensome and, unnecessary; and the conference cut out the whole of section "B" of the history course^ —covering the leading eventb of all ages from the Jtouian period down to the present time. The science proposed for Standard IV. was judged to be sufficiently advanced and adequate in quantity for Standards V. and "VA. "Various other recommendations were made as to the time in which certain subjects may be taught, and the readjustment of the classification of subjects in certain directions. The net result of the conference's resolutions, according to Inspector Goyen, was that much of the unessential and uninteresting matter in the old syllabus had been eliminated, and that the colony ought to be very well satisfied with the new regulations in the form which they would ultimately take. We have still to see i whether in the opinion of our teachers ! and inspectors the new syllabus fulfils j the high hopes formed by those respon- | sible for its existence. Nothing but practical experience of its working will enable them to arrive at a just estimate of its efficiency; and as they have the assurance of the Inspector-General that it has been always regarded as a tentative and experimental scheme, no doubt our educational authorities will speedily avail themselves of their right to criticise and to suggest amendments. It should be added that the postponement of the adoption of the new syllabus to January, 1905, is a wise step which may enable our schools to adapt themselves to the new system without disorganisation or needless waste of time.