EDUCATIONAL TRENDS IN DOMINION

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 205, 27 May 1944, Page 8

EDUCATIONAL TRENDS IN DOMINION

Research Worker’s Views

Current trends and policies in New Zealand’s'education system were assessed by the director of the New Zealand Council for Educational Research, Mr. A. E. Campbell, when giving an address at Victoria University College marking the 47th college foundation day. Sir Thomas Hunter, principal of the college, presided. “I am not going to attempt a feat of the imagination and take you to the year 2000; I find it hard enough to form even a rough picture of . the immediate post-war world,” admitted Mr. Campbell. “As far as New Zealand itself is concerned, there are many things that wa cannot foresee that will affect the tempo and direction of educational change. I think that there are good reasons for thinking that what we shall see in education will be a process of development rather than one of revolutionary change; for one thing, I do not see much sign of a radical change of valuee either in the teaching services or in the community at large; for another the main trends now operating are deep-seated, themselves the culmination of movements that have been going on for a long time.

“It can be said that the success of our educational efforts in the future depends in large measure on our willingness to think of education more in terms of the growth of persons and less in terms of the production of competitive economic units. With society as it is, and as it is likely to be for some time, one does not expect a miraculous change of heart overnight. But in some directions at all events there are hopeful signs. Some years ago, for example, you could not mention music, the arts and crafts, or drama in connexion with education without atempting to rebut in advance the almost inevitable charge that they were mere frills. The recent report on the post-primary curriculum makes muci) of these activities—but so far as I know no one has yet attacked it on that score. The same hopeful trend of thought is seen in the tendency to make the school a democratic community in miniature.” Making brief reference to the further university education of youth, and to adult education, he said that New Zealand had hitherto been rather insensitive to the problem of the continued 1 education of the young wage-earner. There were, of course, many agencies concerned with the general welfare and continued education of youth—the technical schools with their evening classes, voluntary organizations like the Y.M.C.A., and the Y.W.C.A., the Government’s physical welfare and recreation scheme, and so on. “But all this leaves large numbers of young people quite untouched; and it is clear enough that many tend to be cut off from vigorous' creative aud recreational activities and humane social contacts. I have no special knowledge of this field, aud refrain from making any definite proposals. But I should mention that there is a marked stirring of interest in the welfare of youth, and the topic is one of those to be discussed at the Ministerial conference on educational reconstruction to be held in August next; and that it is clear that if our plans are to be effective we shall have to do much more in terms of clubs and camps and youth hostels than in terms of the conventional schoolroom.

“In adult education, too, we can look forward fairly confidently to big advances, I think we have found in the community centre—if it is conceived imaginatively as at Feilding—a very promising type of organization. At all events, we must look to adult education of many and varied types to energize our social and cultural life. It may even- be that we shall eventually be able to transfer some studies now perforce included in the schools, studies that are apt to be unreal to school children, to the adult' period, where they will have much greater meaning and reality. ‘The training of the teachers and others who will be called upon to put our schemes into practice needs consideration,.” said Mr. Campbell. “Many a pretty paper scheme remains a paper scheme sinyily because of lack of sufficient people with the personal and professional qualities needed to put it into operation. And if we are to succeed we shall have to extend the initial period of training for many teachers and increase our provision for specialist training of various kinds. We will have to do much more about the training of the teacher in service, as teachers themselves are now insisting.”