EDUCATION REPORT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 228, 26 September 1930, Page 8

EDUCATION REPORT.

10GICAL AND CONSTRUCTIVE' CONFERENCE DISCUSSION. "DEPARTMENT MOST SORE." The opinion that the recommendations of the Parliamentary Recess: Education Committee did not aim at centralisation, and thatch o report was most logical a'nd constructive, was expressed by Mr. JF. A. Garry, speaking : at the Auckland Education Conference held last evening for ithe purpose of discussing ■ the proposed unification of. control. "While the desire of the Education Department .toseize control of the educational system is most marked, I cannot see that, except in one instance,' the committee has -supported that desire," eaid Mr. Garry. "As a matter of fact, the Department is the most sore body in New Zealand over this report. When-, ever evidence was given by the Director of Education in the direction of wanting control, by the Department, the committee turned it down flat. Yet everyone says he does not trust the report." Mr. Garry added that the report must Abe considered as a whole, a'nd portions of it should not be removed from the context for criticism. It had to be remembered that the conditions in other parts of the Dominion were not comparable with those in Auckland. The committee said, and Mr. Garry believed it meant it, that it desired intensive local control.. Recognising that some of the districts were too large for this to be effectively obtained, it had recommended that they should be divided, in order to decentralise control even more than at present. Unless the proposals for intermediate schools were accepted, it was little use considering unification of control. The evidence in support of intermediate schools was so overwhelming that general acceptance of that part of the report might be presumed. Danger of encroachment of administrative authority upon the field of intellectual control was read into the committee's recommendations by Professor W. Anderson. Professor A. B. Fitt was satisfied that there was indicated in the report'rather a greater measure of centralisation than the country should have in the interests of the children.