Threat To Upset Education

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31676, 11 May 1968, Page 22

Threat To Upset Education

The sheer volume of research and knowledge, which was driving scientists and others into specialisation at an increasing rate, threatened to upset the balance of the education system, Professor J. Vaughan, head of chemistry and pro-rector at the University of Canterbury, told the Association of Heads of Independent Schools in Christchurch this week. This problem must be solved or circumvented before this happened. But be saw no easy answer, he said. People were so busy practising science and other disciplines that they could reach no conclusion about their future. Professor Vaughan said that In university chemistry, for instance, there was a great temptation to pump in useful specialist knowledge at the expense of understanding and enlightenment. The honours degree produced a more satisfactory technical product, but the choice of studies was still limited. The university might be fulfilling one of its major functions by meeting community needs for technically-

equipped graduates, but was the price too high?

The Carnegie Corporation trustees asked for “not just teaching and research in the strict sense, but cultivation of the intellect and the faculty of reason, with the refinement and deepening of moral conscience and with the sharpening of aesthetic sensitivities.” "For its continued prosperity, the community must have technically-equipped recruits; but for its health it must also have recruits who, outside their special field, are thoughtful, articulate, responsible, and tolerant,” said Professor Vaughan. Major adjustments in the main body of degrees were seldom advocated. A preliminary general year or further education of the post-gradu-ate student had been tried! The worth of what was practicable was debatable.

There was an alternative. While a student was often permitted to count units outside his faculty, be received little active encouragement and no general directive to do this. Studies could be liberalised by requiring one or more other units. There was tittle prospect of this being generally accepted because many teachers claimed there was not enough time for the degree itself.

“Although our universities are certainly aware of the dangers of increasingly nan row courses, it is unlikely

that there will be any serious attempt to enforce greater breadth of study,” said Professor Vaughan. “It will be left to the student to make whatever use he chooses of the opportunities remaining open to him.” In Canterbury there were such general courses as general mathematics, legal systems, and the combined unit, but there were always pitfalls in presenting material for general consumption. The same applied in such school subjects as general science. Worse was the simple integration of "eye-catching material and superficial descriptive matter.” Such courses did little more than give a dangerously-satisfying feeling of familiarity with, say, scientific activity and method.

“I would take the safer, more stolid, sectionalised course every time,” said Professor V»ughan. “Please resist any urge to sacrifice the working vocabulary and grammar of the sciences for the easier, superficially-interest-ing, integrated topics of everyday science.”

Professor Vaughan said general education was more likely to come from informal contact with those of different ideas and backgrounds, but the pupil or student must always avoid inter-disciplinary intolerance, envy, and snobbery which sometimes accompanied academic enthusiasms.