‘AUTOCRATIC PRINCIPALS’

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31134, 10 August 1966, Page 3

‘AUTOCRATIC PRINCIPALS’

(New Zealand Press Association) DUNEDIN, August 9. “Autocratic” headmasters “with delusions of grandeur” are blamed by an Auckland educationist for the failure of some young New Zealanders to become socially responsible citizens.

‘‘The social climate of many of our schools might be more conducive to the growth of responsibility and independence if some principals could rid themselves of their omnipotent-autocratic-headmaster complex,” he says. The charges are made by a senior lecturer in education at Auckland University, Mr |w. J. D. Minogue, in an Edu-

cation Department publication. Mr Minogue claims that the “let George do it” attitude towards social responsibility in New Zealand is nurtured by the authoritarian atmosphere of many secondary schools. Such schools fail to give enough encouragement to pupil participation in planning and control. “Can we reasonably expect school-leavers who have had practically all thejr thinking ‘on social and moral problems

done for them suddenly to be-1 come socially responsible citi-j zens because they have School Certificate and wear long trousers?” he asks. j Mr Minogue says that de-) velopment of genuine social; responsibility and indepen-’ dence requires “at least as' much practice as Rugby and l cricket.” Principals should share their powers more widely with their staff and “subject to apropriate and carefullydefined limits,” with their pupils. Pupils should be encouraged to make recommen-i dations for consideration by I school staff and governors. In New Zealand the martinet tended to be admired merely because this was the traditional British ideal of a headmaster. Mr Minogue says. Some teachers concentrated

almost solely on fostering intellectual development be-) cause of restrictions imposed by their principals on any attempt "to try any form of democratic control.” This system was producing; “self-centred pupils.” Parents) and teachers were assessingj ithe efficiency of a school; solely on examination results I“A school should be assessed: on the basis of its teaching) of cultural, social and moral; values.” Adolescents subjected to i authoritarian control at) I school would “form habits of j .subservience and unthinking ) conformity,” concludes Mr Minogue. Alternatively, they would form habits of “irrational contra-suggestiveness. which are not of much value in a free society.”