EDUCATION SYLLABUS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXX, Issue 31, 5 August 1910, Page 7

EDUCATION SYLLABUS.

STATEMENT BY THE MINISTER. The discussion by the Auckland Education Board on the educational syllabus, full particulars of which were published in last night's Post, was referred to by the Hon. G. Fowlds, Minister for Education, in the course of an interview to-day. In reply to the assertion that the curriculum is vague and ambiguous, the Minister said that the matter had been discussed times out of number, and' had received particular attention at the hands of those capable of expressing an opinion, and by experts of every grade of opinion. At the recent Educational Conference a resolution was passed practically unanimously, as follows : — 'l That the work for primary schools is based upon sound principles, and is generally well adapted to the needs of pupils." The Minister added that the suggestion to make a definite course of nature study for all classes in all schools was quite impracticable, but the inclusion of nature study in the general course was already compulsory in every school. "It is, of course, admitted/ added the Minister, " that some detail amendments are required in the syllabus, and these are being attended to at the present time. They are mainly the outcome of the recommendations of the general conference on education and the conference of inspectors held at the beginning of the year. "It is difficult to know," he added, " what more definite pronouncement is required in regard to commercial and political geography. At the meeting of the Auckland Board it was said that these important subjects should not be relegated to a, secondary place to satisfy the whim of any educational authority. Course B, which includes social and commercial geography, is just as compulsory as Course A, physical and mathematical." Referring to Dr. Anderson's remarks in Auckland on the question of appointing examiners within New Zealand to conduct examinations in connection, with i the University, the Minister said the j Assistant Inspector-General was only expressing his own views. This was just j one part of the question of University reform at present occupying the attention of those concerned. It was too early in the discussion for him to express any opinion upon a question which might come before him in a judicial form later on.