THE STATE AND EDUCATION

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25085, 17 January 1947, Page 8

THE STATE AND EDUCATION

“Power to Hamstring University” SEPARATE MINISTER SUGGESTED “For long years the preservation of learning and the extension of the frontiers of knowledge was carried on in universities built and maintained by private foundations. To-day many universities are dependent on the State. Our own is one of them. The State has thus acquired the power, whether it has sought it or not, to hamstring the university,” said Mr Justice Smith, Chancellor of the University of New Zealand, in his address to the Senate yesterday. “Government May Slip” “I am not suggesting that any New Zealand Government would desire to limit the power of the university, yet a government may slip, particularly if the line of development which the community desires is the extension of State action in fields which come within the ordinary scope of university studies; for example, in economics or the other social sciences. Will the majority of the community continue, without intermission to desire independent and impartial investigation in these fields? Will a sense of the omnipresence or of the omnicompetence of the State operate to any extent as a repressive influence? “I wish to make it plain that, while, as a private individual. I may desire to see the authority of the State extended in some directions but not in others, I am concerned, here and now,

only with the question of how, when the State does extend its authority, the State should itself take steps to provide checks to ensure the continuance of those freedoms which are vital to our way of life, which are common to our principal political parties, and which are also the breath of life to the university. My point is that, unless adequate safeguards are provideC. the proper support of the university may be prejudiced. Advisory Body “How then can the State safeguard itself from acting prejudicially towards the university? Firstly, I suggest (and I am speaking only for myself), by setting up a competent and at least quasi-independent body to advise the Government and the Senate upon the funds required for the proper and harmonious development of university education. That body should comprise persons of balanced judgment, one or more being noted for their academic standing, one or more for their outstanding position in the professional or business world, and one or more being high officials of the Government with university degrees. “Alternatively, if the Government does not set up this body, the Senate, I suggest, should have power to do so. “However set up, arrangements should be made to enable the members of this body to detach themselves from the ordinary tasks by which they earn their living so that they will have.enough time in which to do their work. The lack of time for multifarious duties is the great handicap of responsible administrators within the university (and-1 think outside it) in New Zealand to-day. “Secondly, I suggest that the State can safeguard itself from acting prejudicially towards the university by adopting ,the principle of a proposal which is made in an article on ‘University Planning’ which appears in the English paper, the ‘Economist,’ of February 23, 1946. That proposal is that the English University Grants Committee should have the protection of some separate Minister to defend it from the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury. The article then continues with these words: ‘The Ministry of Education is not a suitable guardian for so advanced and intellectually developed a ward. It is probable that the rather loose relationship between the Lord President of the Council and his various proteges would suit the universities better.’ ” “The Minister of Education, by reason of the nature of his duties as Minister of Education, is at a disadvantage in presenting the estimates for the university. He is the Ministerial head of a large department which controls or regulates both primary and secondary education. On the main and supplementary estimates for 1946-47 the expenditure authorised for primary education was £3.930,480. for secondary education was £1.529.075, and for university education was £442.870? Yet. small as the last grant is, compared with the others, university education is. as I have already pointed out. of seminal importance to the whole educational system as well as being of vital importance to the material and the mental welfare of the people. “Furthermore, within the Education Department, the financial proposals for primary and secondary education are. I think, estimated in close detail and the expenditure controlled accordingly. It is important that the university should have much greater freedom. Its grants should be sufficiently assessed, but the university should have a large liberty in expertditure. This is the traditional right of British universities. It is granted because of the faith that university administrators can expend their funds to the better advantage of the university and of the country than the officials of the Education Department or of the Treasury. If that freedom is lost, the university will suffer and so will the country.”