EDUCATION IN N.Z.

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 64, 9 December 1930, Page 7

EDUCATION IN N.Z.

Schools and Colleges STORY OF PROGRESS All-round Training I? DUCATION in New Zealand dates back to the earliest days of British settlement. It was not until 1877, however, that a definite step was taken in the direction of formulating a coordinated scheme of education, and. in that year was passed the Education Act —a measure that is the basis of the Dominion’s educational system to this day. Until 1904 secondary schools in New Zealand were established by local Acts and in this way the great number of New Zealand secondary schools were constituted. At the present time the provisions of the Education Act, 1914, permit the Minister of Education to establish such schools. In general the minimum numbey of prospective pupils must be sixty in the case of secondary schools, twenty in the case of the secondary department of a district high school, and forty in the case of a! technical high school or a day technical school.

A junior free place at a secondary school or a technical school is tenable for two years, with a possible extension to three years. When held at a district high school it is tenable for three years, provided that in any case a junior free place may not be held after December 31 of the year in which the holder reaches seventeen years of age. Senior free places are tenable up to the age of nineteen. The Act provides for the award of a junior and senior national scholarship of a monetary value of £5 and £l5 respectively, supplemented if necessary by a boarding allowance of £35 and £5O respectively. Up till the end of 1919 the greater part of the revenue of technical schools and classes was derived from capitation payments made by the Government based on the attendances of pupils, and each board of managers or other controlling authority was responsible for the fixing of the salaries of its Instructors and the conditions of employment. In 1920, however, the papltation payments were to a great extent abolished, and there was substituted a Dominion system of classification of technical school teachers and manual training instructors, and a corresponding system of payment of salaries. Technical Classes. Technical classes, other than those at technical high schools or technical day schools, were held at thirty-eight centres during 1928, as compared with forty-one in the previous year. The total number of students was 10,903. Students receiving free education during 1928 at technical classes other than at technical high schools or technical , day schools numbered 5280. Technical high schools numbered fourteen, and technical day schools seven in 1928. These schools are of secondary grade and provide industrial, domestic, agricultural, commercial and art classes. New Zealand’s education for the year ended March 31, 1931, totalled £4,138,577, an increase of £175,598 over the expenditure for the previous year. If from the total expenditure is deducted the sum of £443,885 spent on buildings, the net amount remaining is £3,961,692, this being equivalent to £2/10/2 per head of the mean population. The expenditure per head of the. mean population, exclusive of expenditure on new buildings, on secondary education was 6/2 per head of mean population. ■ In 1929 23,022 pupils, 12,059 boys and 10,963 girls, left public primary schools, 78 per cent, .having passed to the sixth -standard. Fifty-one par cent, of the boys and 53 per cent, of girls proceeded to post-primary schools, 20 per cent, of the boys engaged in farming pursuits, and seven per cent, of the boys entered various trades. The number of full-time teachers on the staffs of the:44 secondary schools at the end of 1929 was 657, compared with 623 in 1928. There were 327 full-time assistant teachers on the staffs of technical schools, besides a large number of part-time teachers. At the beginning of the present century education cost the New Zealand taxpayer £519,000 per year, or an expenditure of 13/4 per head of population. By 1929 the expenditure was nearly six times as great. Increasing Cost. - The marked increase of recent years in tlie total cost of education is due in large measure to the increase in the numbers receiving instruction, this being particularly marked in the case of post-primary schools. In the last decade the school population has made increased expenditure necessary. The purchasing power of money has declined, however, and when this is taken into consideration the increase in the cost of education is not perhaps so great as a hurried glance at the figures might lead one to believe. When Parliament established universal elementary education 1877 as a State function in New Zealand there was never much difference of opinion, and in fact there has not been since, as to the essentials of elementary education. An elementary education is generally accepted as ability to read and comprehend what is read within well understood limits, ability to express Ideas correctly in oral and written speech, and mastery of the fundamentals of computation with ability to apply them to the calculations required in ordinary affairs. It is at the age of “eleven plus” that the question of what to teach arises. When fifth and sixth standards were Included in the public school course the founders of national education in New Zealand introduced a modicum of secondary education into the primary schools. In the category of essentially secondary subjects were English, grammar, history, geography and advanced arithmetic as' they were taught in the two higher standards. That this distinction between elementary and secondary education was recognised at the outset Is clear because of the fact that compulsory education at first extended only to the fourth- standard. Eventually compulsory education was extended to the sixth standard, and abotit'a quarter of a century ago free places at the high schools were substituted. Later i the system of university bursaries was! established and education was nominally free from kindergarten to Univer- [