Cost of Education

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 149, 20 March 1931, Page 11

Cost of Education

ITie leader in to-day’s “Dominion” on "The Cost of Education,” though distinctly too non-committal, and without the necessary emphasis, and, moreover, long overdue, will be read with extreme satisfaction by readers who take time to think on the subject. The intelligentsia of this country, except that portion whose selfinterests take precedence over the wider interests of the country, has for many years been painfully aware of the enormous squandering of public money that has been going on, but beyond sporadic but very pertinent letters addressed to the editors, very little protest has been made. In this respect our Press has been culpable to a degree, presumably for the reason that the newspapers with the politicians follow the popular course, rather than the right one. My regret is that “The Dominion” has deferred its protest, or should I say its lukewarm comments, until compelled by the economic situation, and of dire necessity to say something. This, writer battled for some years, and until he was put on the pillory by an unveracious Bumbledom, against the wasteful regime of Sir James Parr’s initiation, but the in tenser I made my protests, the more I became convinced that inefficiency, ineptitude and recklessness of public interests constituted so largely the integer of the whole system, and that nothing in the way of reform could be expected at the hands of those “running the show,” that in disgust I retired from the fray. My objections, .which I made in writing to the Education Board, the Director of . the N.Z.E.1., and to even the “lion in his den,” the Minister, were . directed against preferences in appointments, overlapping by technical and high schools, training at excessive cost of too many teachers, the' delegation of too much power to board secretaries, the abuse of their positions by board members. Education, I have always contended, in this country is a fetish, hypocritically worshipped by its interested devotees, the teaching service. The general public in its ignorance believes that our great "free secular and compulsory” education costs them nothing, and therefore any waste need in turn cost them no concern. The round million of money spent annually is to them but a fitting sacrifice for being permitted to send dismal Danny and dull Deborah to the High School, after a competency or proficiency certificate has been engineered for him or her. You say “quality has been sacrificed for quantity.” Quite so, Sir. The whole system has pandered to the vanity, and traded on the ignorance of the parents, who were led to expect that their youngsters were destined to become modern Flatoe or Portias. Det us be done with such impractical and improvident impostures, and get back to a sane and sanitary system, to the saving of the tremendous sums annually being wasted. May I commend G. F. Moore and ‘‘Economy,” who have lately addressed you on this subject.—l am. etc., DISGUSTED.. Wellington,- March 10.'