CONTROL OF EDUCATION.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 196, 21 August 1933, Page 6

CONTROL OF EDUCATION.

DANGER IN CENTRALISATION.

(To the Editor.)

It was a pleasure to read in Saturday's "Star" Mr. P. J. Outrim's careful comparison of English and New Zealand public schools. Mr. Outrim does not indulge in generalisations, and for that reason alone his opinions command respect. He sees the advantages of uniformity, achieved through centralisation, and he has noted also its disadvantages— "Ideals and ideas 'appeared to be stifled by excessive organisation and the perpetual striving for results assessed by examination." This stultifying tendency has been noted before, but we can never be too often reminded of it. Although it is feasible that a change in headquarters personnel will from time to time check or reverse this tendency, yet it will always be there, implicit- in tho system, and as the school population grows the tendency is likely to become more marked. This makes it essential that the powers of our education boards should be preserved and increased. The ruling idea of the Education Department seems to be that the education boards cannot be entrusted with the expendi : ture of money, but when the Department itself makes a mistake it is usually a big one. The most striking recent example of that is the training of many. hundreds more teachers than can now be employed, EX-PUPIL.