Full, Impartial Inquiry Into Education Sought

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29146, 5 March 1960, Page 14

Full, Impartial Inquiry Into Education Sought

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, March 4.

To avoid any suggestion of the commission being a factional prosecutor, judge and jury of the country’s educational system, the members had been chosen from many fields of interest, said the Minister of Education (Mr Skoglund) at the first sitting today of the Commission on Education in New Zealand.

“ I deliberately withheld representation from any particular body that might want to bring evidence before the commission,” he said. Therefore no representative of the Education Department was on it —not that the department was on trial, but the Government did not want anyone to be able to say the commission was set up to vindicate what had been done by the departmentMr Skoglund read a letter he had sent to the chairman, Sir George Currie, in which he said the Government sought a full and impartial inquiry into the pub-licly-controlled school system, neither unduly hurried nor unduly prolonged, with opportunity for the commission to sift a wide range of evidence, to initiate and carry through investigations of its own that it judged to be necessary and to bring down a report that would make it possible to see more clearly the direction of our educational development r and to recommend specific lines of action. Evidence in Public

Mr Skoglund said he expected the commission to give the public reasonable opportunity through t' e press to follow its proceedings and to know something of the evidence laid before it. All evidence should be in public, subject to the normal right to go into committee at any point. Only members of the commission should have the right to cross-examine, the Minister’s letter said. All deliberations on the evidence must necessarily be in private.

He asked that priority ue given to consideration of the staffing of post-primary schools, though in order to bring down an interim report on this, consideration must be given to related matters. Mr Skoglund said the department would make available its library and any reports and documents the commission might require. Also, members of the commission individually or in groups would be given every facility to visit any institutions under the department’s control. Sittings of the commission in the four main centres and, where the volume of evidence justified it, in certain provincial centres, would be entailed. He expected the commission’s task might take as long as two years to complete.

Where a matter of major importance falling within the terms of reference involved new policy, he would, wherever possible, give the commission an opportunity of commencing on it before action was finally taken, said the Minister.

“I am sure we will not only have a very valuable report and a worthwhile contribution to the future of education in New Zealand,” Mr Skoglund said. “People looking at education in New Zealand many years ahead will be able to say that in this report is shown everything of importance to education up to that time. It should be one of the most valuable reports ever made on education in this country.” In reply, Sir George Currie said

he hoped those who felt strongly that they knew of faults in our public system of education and who felt that they knew the best means of correcting them would come forward freely with sound evidence to establish their points of view. In view of the scope of the order of- reference and the experience of overseas education commissions, the estimate of two years for the commission's task was quite modest, he said. “We will make every effort to make a sound assessment of our system of education as it exists today and then attempt to make such a report as may point the way to the best possible education in the future to help our sons and daughters in their lives and in their work. The commission then went into committee to discuss its methods of working and the itinerary that may be indicated in order to cover the field required of it.

The members of the commission are: Sir George Currie, Mr J. W. Armstrong, Professor C. L. Bailey, Mr G. F. Bartley, Mr G. T. Bolt, Mr J. L. Cameron, Mr R. W. Cumberworth, Mr Russell Davis, Mr D. F. Horlor, Miss Muriel May and Mrs Mary Mackenzie.