EDUCATION REFORM

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 71, 17 December 1937, Page 13

EDUCATION REFORM

Is It Necessary In New

Zealand?

“HOT AIR ON ALL SIDES”

Doaiinion Special Service

Wanganui, December 16.

Some interesting comments on the progress of education in New Zealand are contained in the annual report of Air. I. E. Newton, M.A.. principal of the Wanganui Technical College. He refers in particular to the fact that a great deal has been said and written on all sides about what has been termed “new education.” “So little has been done to alter the present system that one begins to wonder whether there is so much wrong, after all, in what we might term the old education,” Mr. Newtown adds. “For the past 12 years or more there has been much talk of great changes I»ending, and commission after commission has been set up by Alinister after Alinister to find out what is wrong and how to put matters right. Certainly the names of Standards V and VI have been altered to Forms I and 11, and a few intermediate schools have been established in a half-hearted sort of fashion in different, parts of the country, in spite of the fact that this type of school is becoming discredited in more advanced countries. It is true also that the certificates of competency and proficiency have been abolished, but only to be replaced by another certificate under another name. “The teachers are to be allowed more freedom, but do they want it? Were they not offered it as far back as the year 1928, when the ‘modernised’ syllabus of instruction was issued, and have they made use of it, or are they prevented from using it by the powers that be? AVe have been promised a new Education Bill, to «bring our system right up-to-date, but two sessions of Parliament have already gone by and no one knows what is in the wind. Perhaps everything in the garden is lovely, as the Director of Education said on his return from an educational trip abroad. Some of us smiled at the time, but may he not be right after all?

“Aluch has been said about the need for unification of the system of administration, but the only scheme suggested to bring this about is not unification at all but disintegration, because it would set up a number of miniature education departments all over the country under the name of education boards. If unification is the desired goal, why not steer straight for it by wiping out of the way the existing stumbling-block, the education boards? The advocates of unification will say that this is centralisation, and that they are not in favour of centralisation, but how can you get unification without centralisation? So where are we? And what is wrong? Everybody seems to know In general what is wrong, but nobody seems to know what in particular is wrong. In other words, a lot of hot air is liberated on all sides, but from nowhere are there any definite constructive schemes for improvement. “The only conclusion one can arrive at is that there cannot be much wrong after all; so in the meantime let the teachers and pupils get on with their work in the good old-fashioned way. If reform is necessary, as no doubt it is, let it come from the proper place, from inside the profession, otherwise there is danger of the system being guided, or misguided, by faddists who know nothing at all about the practical side of education.”