NO BOOKS!

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 39, 15 February 1929, Page 8

NO BOOKS!

THE NEW SYLLABUS.

AN UNTIMELY CHANGE.

"WORSE THAN EXPECTED."

(By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.)

WELLINTON, this day,

The cost of school books is discussed wherever parents are gathered in the name of education, and now that the new syllabus is being introduced into primary schools, the outcry is perhaps louder than ever, such a complete change making it impossible to hand down books from older to younger children for 1929 at least. Further difficulty with the change-over is that very few of the text books for primary schools are yet available. The "Education Gazette" of February 1 prepared teachers for this unpreparedness by stating the position in detail as regards the probable time when the arithmetic, composition, history and geography books would be ready, but, according to a headmaster of long standing in "Wellington, matters have been worse than expected. "Practically schools are working without books," he said. 'This is naturally very inconvenient, particularly to teachers who have had no opportunity of studying or understanding the new books. There have been some few advance supplies, but the bulk of the books have not come to hand. We hope, however, to have a full set before long, except, perhaps, geographies. The Department was late in giving material to the compilers, and so the books are correspondingly late in publication. It is my personal opinion that the Department would have done better had it waited till 1930 to introduce the new syllabns; then the books would have been ready. As it has happened that unauthorised books are being obtained at the instigation of some teachers, an official list is published by post.