STATE AID TO SCHOOL

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28556, 9 April 1958, Page 15

STATE AID TO SCHOOL

Institute Seeks “Check On Drift” The New Zealand Educational Institute believes it is time that existing State aid to private schools should be checked. A leading article in “National Education” (the teachers’ journal) notes that the Minister of Education (Mr Skoglund) thinks it opportune to pause and study the education system and that he has proposed conferences on technical education and religion in schools. “The institute agrees that a pause to consider a change of direction in some aspects of the education system could be profitable —to check the drift towards more and more State aid for private schools, for instance,” the article says.

“So far as religion is concerned, there is ample provision in the Nelson system for the required instruction to be given. One difficulty is that the system has in too many instances been twisted out of shape to suit the convenience of those giving instruction. Any attempt to give legality to this twist by including religious instruction within the curriculum is bound to cause dissension and would have to be strongly resisted by the institute. “When the Minister speaks of a pause, he is not, we imagine, thinking of any cessation of the present move towards smaller classes, the recruitment and training of more teachers, the construction of more classrooms, and the gradual liberalising of the present staffing schedules. This is something that must be continued more and more intensively if our goal is to be reached in reasonable time —time for children now in the schools to benefit,” says “National Education.”