EDUCATION IN NEW ZEALAND

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22444, 4 July 1938, Page 15

EDUCATION IN NEW ZEALAND

SYSTEM “A MUDDLE”

administrative methods CRITICISED

VIEWS OF DR. WILLIAM BOYD

CrsOM OOJt OWW CO^BBSPOHMHT.J

LONDON. May 14. The “muddle” of the New Zealand education system, caused by a "succession of political blunders." Is the subject’of an article by Dr, William Boyd, of Glasgow University, In the “Scottish Educational Journal.” “When Alice went through the looking glass to school the country she found herself in, I am sure, was New Zealand,” he says, “In the wonderland of the Pacific, more than anywhere else, things educational are net what they seem. The Educational Institute of New Zealand, representing the primary teachers, characterises them in a carefully documented statement as Chaos.’ That is obviously the wrong word to apply to an education system in which primary teachers are mathematically graded for appointment on a 328 point scale and have their doings ordered in accordance with yards of regulations, , , “The schools are good, the children ore good, the teachers are good, thelt departmental masters are good; but the system under which they Work is a muddle. Though seemingly indifferent m its organisation from that Of the Australian states, in actual working it has the same essential structure; but whereas Australia has managed to \ , make the various elements in its acholastic scheme tolerably coherent. New Zealand has not. It is both centralised and decentralised, and it makes the worst of both worlds. Local Organisations “There is a powerful Education Department, but the local boards and committees for which the department has no real, use. refuse to disappear, and for lack of a proper function are mainly effective in obstruction. Everywhere there is overlapping of provinces; primary schools, high schools technical schools and colleges, university colleges all trespass on each other’s ground. “It is not difficult to see the reason for this confusion. It is the outcome of a succession of political blunders which have resulted in the imposition of a highly centralised administrative system on a country which ought to have remained, as it began. With decentralised education. Tt is amazing that in a country which has been rich in political experiment. no parliamentarian since 1877 has ever applied himself seriously ‘O the unification of the conflicting educational interests of the islands. Admittedly the adjustment of provincial jmd central Interests presents great difWmlties In education as in other • ?£r er as of government, but there can J!® no hope of a satisfactory organisahon of the national education until some big-minded politician faces the -issues boldly and works out a scheme --9 1 reconstruction without too much regard vested" interests whic w nave been created by the piecemeal legislation of the last 60 years. After the politicians, the main responsibility for the situation rests with

the Education Department. From being a mere bureau with functions mainly clerical, it has become a controlling body with extraordinary powers: including the fantastic power of making regulations which are not invalid even when they contravene any and all of the Education Acts. Department Criticised

“With such powers the department might have been expected to go a long way towards the co-ordination of education apart from anything that Parliament might or might not do. Instead of that, the department has taken the line of least resistance and accepted the diversity of authorities as In the nature of the case. Witness the fact that it has separate groups of inspectors for primary schools, secondary schools, technical schools, special schools. Native schools, all working under regulations of their own, “Perhaps it was too much to expect /that a department manned by persons who have come to their high office by the way of seniority on the strength of their excellence as teachers and Inspectors should possess the gifts of initiative and statesmanship needed for educational reconstruction on a national scale. But there the fact Is. The super-teachers at the head of the department, capable men as they are, have proved as disappointing as the legisI tutors “The picture must not, however, be painted too blackly. New Zealand is a new country, with a real zeal for education, and as Its labour laws show, not afraid of making bold changes when it realises the need. One of these days it will tackle its education problem as it has tackled other problems. Even now a great deal of thought is being given to the matter. A scheme of reorganisation is ready to hand in the unanimous recommendations of a Parliamentary Committee representative of all parties, which, took evidente from every educational group in the country in 1929. “Further Information is available from the systematic survey of New Zealand’s educational institutions which is being made by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research. Discussion still goes on freely. All that is wanted noy is the man strong enough and wise enough to bring the new' system Into being.”