PRIVATE TECHNICAL SCHOOLS.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 11581, 12 May 1903, Page 4

PRIVATE TECHNICAL SCHOOLS.

The Education Department is never in a hurry, except when it has made tip its mind to do ilie wrong thing. A case in point is afforded by its attitude in regard to private technical schools, as revealed in a letter which we publish in another column. Aβ our readers are. no doubt aware, a very useful work is being done by a number of private commercial schools, in which lads are taught shorthand, and book-keeping, and in other ways trained for a commercial career, or for the civil service. Hitherto country students attending these classes have been allowed a special concession on the. railway rates, but ■the 'Education Department), through Mr Hogben, now notifies that these concessions will be withdrawn at the end of the present year, "in view of the facilities that " now exist, for the establishment of classes " for public instruction in technical eub"jecte in accordance with the regulations "issued under the Manual and Technical Instruction Act, 1900, and the "Amending Act, 1902." The concessions to these schools were originally granted, it> is to be presumed, because it was felt that they were doing a good work and deserved to be encouraged. It is not pretended that the Government have actually taken over the work, and are giving the desired instruction, thus rendering it do longer necessary or desirable to give any assistance to private schools. The Minister can only say that "facilities have been given for the establishment" of public classes which may or may not be set up in the future. Judging by the way in which Government liae dawdled over technical education in the past the prospect of any satisfactory system of State technical instruction being eeen in actual working order seems somewhat remote. The Minister for Education lias shown no energy whatever in the constructive part of hw work. Hie capacity for muddling and interfering with work that ie already being done, however, eeeme to be unlimited. One would have thought that having all the advantages of the State* at hie back he would have been content to allow the private schools to compete with the Government classes on an equal footing. That he should deal this blow at the private schools and eeek to lessen the sphere of their usefulness before he ia able to give us even a definite promise of the State classes being established is another amazing instance of the way in which his Department always contrives to act on the time-honoured principle of "How not to do it."