EDUCATION.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 260, 2 November 1935, Page 22

EDUCATION.

GOVERNMENT POLICY. CLE4R ANSWER DESIRED. Keen disappointment, at .the lack of definiteness in the Government's educational policy, as announced in its manifesto, was" expressed by Mr. G. E. Ashbridge, secretary of the New Zealand Educational Institute, "All we are told is that the Director of Education is investigating educational conditions overseas, and that 'our educational system will be revised and improved in. the light of New Zealand conditions and advanced practice abroad,'" said Mr. Ashbridge. "The statement Is vague in the extreme and completely lacking in any positive indication of what the Government intends to do. Indeed, it arouses the suspicion that the absence of the director is being used as a convenient excuse for inaction and delay. What is wanted is a clear and unequivocal answer to such questions as these: Does the Government intend to implement the report of the Education Committee recommending the readmission of the five-year-olds to public schools, and if so, when? Does it propose to extend facilities for teacher training to permit of a reduction in the size of classes in primary schools? Does it intend to increase the allowances to school committees to such an extent as to permit schools to be properly cleaned and heated? How long does it propose to pay fully-trained and certificated teachers doing full-time and fully responsible work at rationed rates? What is it going to do about the school-leaving age ? Or about our present costly and cumbrous system of educational adminis- j tration? "J