MORE EDUCATION FOR ALL

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22142, 12 July 1937, Page 12

MORE EDUCATION FOR ALL

"NO ONE TOO OLD TO LEARN"

VISITING AUTHORITY TELLS MODERN IDEAS

Everyone, children and their parents as well, will have to spend more time being educated and acquiring knowledge if they are to keep pace with modern life, according to a world authority on education, Dr. I. L. Kandel, of Columbia University, New York, who is visiting Christchurch. He indicated in an intervew on Saturday a new educational plan agreed upon by leading authorities in which a big point of policy will be to break down the barriers between school and the outer world. The new educational plan involves not only the retention of children at school for a longer period, but the development of education among adults, with the slogan, "No one is too old to learn." Dr. Kandel said that industrial development was keeping the adolescent off the labour market and forcing children to stay at school longer. The tendency everywhere was for a longer school life, and it was most certainly essentia] if children were to be equipped adequately for their parts in the world.

In the United States 50 per cent, of the boys and girls between 14 and 18 were in the high schools, and in California the percentage was 80. In England and Scotland the school leaving age had been raised to 15, and pupils passed to post-primary education at the age of 11 plus. In France the leaving age had been raised from 13 to 14, and might be raised another year. He regarded this as a tendency towards the extension of the compulsory age to 18. though this was not within the range of practice yet.

More Intelligence Required Far more education and intelligence and general mental equipment were required of everyone nowadays and education systems were being designed to meet the need. A big thing was to break down the barriers between school and the outride world. Employers, particularly, should have a different attitude towards post-primary education.

According to the new ideas a child would be allowed to develop his natural aptitudes tst school more than pver had been done before, and tfcrn at the age of about 15 he would be"in to train for his vocation particu'arly. There shou'd be a link between '-mployment and education allowing the child to his employment while he was still receiving education. If a bov found he did not like the vocation he had chosen he could change it before leaving school, and he therefore need not. run the risk of being turned out of school equipped for a job he found he did not want to do.

Cultural subjects were not being neglected in the new scheme of education. English would take a big place as also would arts and crafts. Schools would have greater flexibility and be better able to adapt themselves to individual differences. Education would be directed, also towards a reasoned self-discipline, which was far more valuable than discipline by external force.

Extension to Adults The problem of adequate education could by no means be settled by prolonging the school life. Educational supervision should be maintained over the ycung people and facilities given for adults to gain more education In the United States facilities for adult work were provided, and properly organised and they were being taken advantage of; and much native ability discovered. A leading psychologist had said, "No one is too old to learn," and his slogan was being acted upon Incidentally, Dr. Kandel said, one of the most thrilling accounts of group activities among adults he had read, was a description in the bulletin of the World Association for Adult Education of the work done by Mr H C. D. Someiset. of the Oxford ConsoUdated School in North Canterbury, from very small beginnings, with meetings in his own home on Saturday evenings, Mr Somerset had been ab.e to cultivate an interest in a variety of activities and this had led to th«: formation of a centre for adults bringing them into closer contact with the school.