NEW EDUCATION BILL

Press, Volume C, Issue 29582, 3 August 1961, Page 17

NEW EDUCATION BILL

Board’s Special Meeting The Canterbury Education Board will hold a special evening meeting on August 17 to consider the implications of tlie draft new Education Bill and of Education Department submissions to the Education Commission on greater autonomy for boards. The Education Bill is chiefly a consolidating measure to write into the statute the scores of amendments made since the 1914 act. The aim is to put the essentials in a new act and cover the rest by regulations. Canterbury has long been the champion of such consolidation. Mr Angus McNeil —as a senior inspector, School Committees’ Association member, and board member —for very many years claimed that it was almost impossible for anyone to keep track of changes in the Education Act originally written in 1877, rewritten soon after the turn of the century, and reprinted in 1914 with the amendments incorporated. Most Canterbury board members are as pleased that Mr McNiel’s long campaign has borne fruit as they are at the prospect of a new act which should be much clearer.

It is not expected that the board will press for any substantial changes in the present bill. Consideration of the Education Department submissions to the Education Commission is for long-term purposes. Education boards, through their association, have been seeking more autonomy. In its submissions, the department suggested conditions which should be attached to the various means of extending local autonomy. The Canterbury board intends to make an early decision on how it would react to commission support of any one of these schemes.