Education Commission Handling 5m Words Of Formal Evidence

Press, Volume C, Issue 29459, 10 March 1961, Page 22

Education Commission Handling 5m Words Of Formal Evidence

How will the Commission on Education set about its herculean task of reducing about 5,000,000 words of evidence, plus the findings of members, into its final report?

The chairman (Sir George Currie) explained the general method when interviewed in Christchurch yesterday. The task might seem impossible, he said; so the public was entitled to know about the very complete arrangements made by the commission’s administrative staff for a full index.

The written submissions made to the commission totalled about 1,000,000 words and these were virtually complete although not all had been heard in person. Sir George Currie said. The verbatim record of witnesses heard last year totalled another 1,000,000 words and about the same amount was expected this year. In addition the commission had well over 1,000,000 words of background material and reports and would call specifically for more from its research staff.

Sir George Currie said that public hearings were expected to end in July. The commission would then invite the Education Department to comment on the practical implications of many of the proposals made. It was probable that information would be sought from overseas on practices drawn to the commission's attention by witnesses. Patterns Emerging

Certain patterns were emerging, Sir George Currie said, so that individuals in the commission had already begun a first draft of their broad views on the line's the renort should take.

Sir George Currie said that with the secretary (Dr. K J. Sheen) and the research officer (Mr W. L. Renwick) he had started an introduction about the possible future of New Zealand education. Individual members with special knowledge had also started drafts on special levels of education. It must be emphasised, Sir Georgie Currie said, that these statements were very tentative and subject always to modification in the light of evidence yet to be received and of the very long discussions the commission must hold in private in the last half of this year. Report Next April

The commission’s report would probably not be presented to the Minister of Education until about next

April. Sir George Currie said that the preliminary statements now begun were "straw men being set up to be knocked down” in commission discussion. In every field the commission would have the benefit of a most complete index system. The commission’s administration officer (Mr Guy Palliser) has made detailed arrangements. The master index to evidence has hundreds of headings and hundreds of sub-headings. Every comment on every topic is abstracted daily from the record and filed under appropriate headings in four big cabinets. Every member also has an index and a cross index to their personal thick files of evidence. In dealing with any aspect of any topic the commission

thus has immediate access to that section ot the evidence even though witnesses may have been heard months apart and in widespread parts of New Zealand. The striking feature of the commission’s hearings has been the substantial agreement emerging on many features of the order of reference. Observers have remarked that they never expected such accord on broad principles. It is probably this feature which has enabled the commission to give early consideration to the broad lines of its report now so that in the months ahead it can work out the practical applications of any changes. But presentation of the report with its final modifications is still a year ahead.