COST OF EDUCATION.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 184, 6 August 1927, Page 8

COST OF EDUCATION.

Un the whole, the Minister of Education may be congratulated on the effectiveness of his reply to recent critics. We may readily accept his assurance that nothing would please him better than to give all the various applicants for education grants everything that they want. But the Minister is of necessity compelled to apportion allowances with some regard to the total funds at his disposal, and it is obvious that even the substantial sums voted yearly by Parliament cannot meet all possible requirements. The question whether the Education vote —now nearly £4,000,000 — is larpe enough is entirely different. All that Mr. Wright maintains is that under the circumstances he has done the best that could be done with a limited amount of money.

As regards the special criticism offered recently by the Technical Education Association, we think that Mr. Wright's defence is quite a satisfactory one. The Technical School Boards are naturally anxious to discharge their responsibilities to their own institutions, and we presume that they are justified in asking for anything that they have a chance of getting. But we agree with the Minister that his first duty is to primary education. No matter what happens to secondary schools or technical colleges or the university, the primary schools must not be neglected, for they are the foundation of the whole educational system. If those interested in higher education believe that technical schools or secondary schools are being unfairly treated, let them agitate for a larger education vote, or let them organise a system, of local taxation—as in the United States—for special educational purposes. Meantime they must find it difficult to answer Mr. Wright's very natural question: "Am I justified in saying to a town, 'Put up a palace,' when I know that there are primary schools starving in country places f"