TECHNICAL SCHOOLS

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 190, 10 May 1934, Page 7

TECHNICAL SCHOOLS

Relations to University SUPERINTENDENT’S SURVEY “The University of New Zealand, by an accident of birth, similar to that which produced the London University, was and still is primarily an examining and degree-conferring body, and the constituent colleges are still to a considerable extent governed in regard to their general and particular activities by outside forces,’’ said Mr. VV, S. La Trobe, Superintendent of Technical Education, during the course of an address to the annual conference of the New Zealand Technical School Teachers’ Association yesterday in the “Relationship of tlij) Technical Colleges with the University.’’ It was true, Mr. La Trobe continued, that under the 192(5 Act, the University of New Zealand became a federal university, consisting of the four university colleges, but the university college and the councils of the four colleges were still so constituted, and the university Itself was still so dependent upon the Government for its funds that the effective control did not vest in a body corporate consisting of the chancellor, vice-chancellor, fellows, and graduates of the university. The constituent colleges were also widely separated geographically, limited in activity not only by inter-collegiate jealousies, but also by political control of available funds, and were dominated to a large extent by external examinations. Reicliel and Tate Report, In these circumstances, the federation was not fully effective in giving those qualities to the university which would enable it to function in the manner of the ancient foundations of learning and piety. The result was that, in the words of the Reicliel and Tate report of 1925, “the University of New Zealand offers unrivalled facilities for gaining university degrees, but is less successful in providing university education.” Mr. La Trobe went on to trace the history of the organisation of the University of New Zealand and the system of technical education in the Dominion. In general, be said, the tendency appeared Jo be for the university to provide courses for persons wishing to enter the increasing number of occupations regarded as professional, and for the technical schools to provide suitable courses for trade and industry and commerce in occupations bordering in many cases on the professional. The relationship of university and technical school depended on the relationship of professional occupations to trade, industrial and commercial occupations. Were these to overlap there was necessarily a possibility of the work of the university and technical colleges overlapping. Where they were definitely separated there was no such possibility. Indefinite Demarcation. There was a danger of each type of institution poaching on what should be the preserves of the other. The difficulty was enhanced by the indefiniteness of the demarcation between professional and trade branches and the proper preparation of practitioners in those branches. There was no doubt that, where full facilities for training of trade students existed in a technical school, the local university college should not cater for such students, and similarly, where a university college catered for professional students in a properly staffed and equipped professional school, the technical college should not take students preparing in such a branch for professional standing. Tn general, the university college accepted students, even though they were not matriculated, in the classes it provided, and the technical college admitted students to any of its classes if they were able to profit by the teaching. The technical school had, in the past, no power to refuse them. So long as the university examined candidates for various examinations who had not actually attended and kept terms at a constituent college, it would not appear to be possible to avoid some overlapping between secondary and technical schools on the one hand and the university on the other. The development of senior day work in the technical schools and the prolongation of the attendance of pupils at secondary schools outside university centres, and even in university centres, often on senior free places, increased the difficulty of the problem. In these advanced classes of the day schools it was possible, under any reasonable arrangement of staffing ratio, for pupils to receive more individual attention than was possible in the university colleges in the junior courses of the university. Defeat of Examiner. Preparations for the defeat of the examiner in an external written examination of a standard no higher than that ordinarily reached in a good postprimary school could therefore be undertaken by those schools with some confidence. It might be suggested that in such circumstances the recognition by the university of such schools and colleges for the more elementary parts of the university training would put the whole matter in order. London University followed this plan for a long time, but there were serious objections to its wide adoption from the point of view of true university life and training, and the best interests of the students themselves, and therefore of the State which, in New Zealand, was the chief support of both schools and university. , Mr. La Trobe said that his own view was that the university should only provide courses in definitely professional occupations, and in its owu special domain of the advancement of learning and should Insist on residence and full-time attendance of students at its own colleges, and that all other training of a lower or more directly practical character should be left to the local technical combined and secondary schools. There should be the proviso that, in centres where there was a constituent college 'which did not provide a professional course in any particular occupation, the local technical college, if it provided a course for that occupation and was staffed and equipped to the satisfaction of the university authorities, should be affiliated to the local coustitutent college for the purpose of. say. the lower professional examinations of the university course.