SYSTEM UNWIELDY, SAYS MINISTER Co-ordination will be sought in education

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33032, 27 September 1972, Page 16

SYSTEM UNWIELDY, SAYS MINISTER Co-ordination will be sought in education

More co-ordination would be needed in New Zealand education —and more involvement of teachers and students—if the country were to cope with future changes, said the Minister of Education (Mr Pickering) when he opened the annual conference in Christchurch last evening of the Education Boards* Association.

Mr Pickering was unable to be present at the ceremony because of Parliamentary business, but he spoke to the gathering by telephone. In the development of the country’s education system since 1877, the growth of primary and secondary education had been along quite

different lines, said Mr Pickering.

As a corollary, primary and secondary teachers formed their own professional organisations, and had tended to travel along different paths. This separate development was reinforced by different syllabuses, and by separate primary and secondary inspectorates within the Department of Education. Different sectors “As educational facilities have expanded and multiplied, New Zealand has acquired additional administrative machinery to control the different sectors, each in a somewhat different way—kindergartens, play centres, universities, and more recently technical institutes and teachers’ colleges,” he said. The system which had grown up far removed from any theorist’s blueprint. It was not planned in advance, was not logical, and was unwieldly, but "surely the most

democratic education system in the world.” However, the country must face the fact that the need now existed for greater liaison and co-ordination, he said. "It is quite obvious that we cannot afford to go on indefinitely adding more and more administrative structures each time a new type of educational development comes along.” Mr Pickering said he did not seek rapid or radical change, but he hoped for some moving together, first, of the various branches of the education system, and second, of the elements within those branches. To achieve this, the greatest involvement of all concerned with education was needed.

"From the students, I believe we can expect an increasing share of the innovation of new policies and methods of education,” said Mr Pickering.