‘Tinkering . . .'
“Tinkering around with curricula, building codes or even the conditions of service for teachers will not solve the situation. “The problem is much deeper than that,” Mr Rowling said.
“There is a lot of talk about ‘back to basics.’
“The challenge of our times — for politicians, for the people out there on the street, for you people caught up in the forefront of social change — is to restore those basics that underpin a stable community life.” Mr Rowling said New Zealand’s education history was littered with the results of a
mania for centralisation and uniformity. “It shows in a host of ways — from the closing of small country schools in the interest of size, through to the many thousands of kids who still pour out of secondary schools year after year — totally unequipped for the reality of the working world,” he said. “We do not have much money, but we do have a breathing space and surely the ingenuity and the will to try some new directions.” A period of falling school rolls was an opportunity which must not be lost through retrenchment or inertia.
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Press, 22 August 1979, Page 3
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186‘Tinkering . . .' Press, 22 August 1979, Page 3
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