CLOSEST HARMONY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 190, 14 August 1933, Page 5

CLOSEST HARMONY.

EDUCATION SYSTEM.

INSPECTORS AND TEACHERS. REPLY TO LONDONER. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, this day. "Such a statement would appear to be that of an outsider who expresses himself in a forcible and exaggerated manner on' a subject he has not had time to study." This was the reply of Mr. W. Brock, of Christchurch, a former senior inspector of schools, to the views expressed by Sir. C. Allen, an exchange teacher from London, at a recent meeting of the Otago branch of the Teachers' Institute concerning the education system in the primary schools of New Zealand.

Mr. Brock said he realised that the proficiency examination was used for a great many things, and there were weaknesses in the system of education, but there were no grounds for the charge that the system was based on distrust. The suggestion that the authorities and the inspectors distrusted teachers was wrong. Between these two factors there was the closest harmony.

It was wrong, Mr. Brock added, to suggest that the proficiency examination was the be all and end all of methods of teachers. There was room for revision, perhaps, but teachers of primary schools in Xew Zealand had more in mind than merely the pushing of masses of children through the examination.