EDUCATION

Evening Post, Volume XCVIII, Issue 130, 29 November 1919, Page 18

EDUCATION

ADMINISTRATION QUES-

TIONS

IN DEFENCE OP THE BOARDS

The New Zealand Education Boards' Association has come k) the conclusion that S, determined effort will be made in the neai' future to persuade Parliament) to abolish boards aiid establish the principle of centralisation in respect of education in New Zealand. Believing that this would be a retrograde step, tho association has drawn up a statement in defence of the board-, and is submitting this to members of school committees, teachers, and other electors. The association gives reasons for urging tho retention of the boards, -and these, summarised, are as follow : (1) The principle of centralisation is unsound, it has proved Itself ineffective wherever tried. lt is important that a healthy local interest about the education of the children should be maintained in every district, and that a body strong enough to influence the Department should exist in every largo area. These needs are met by school committees and education boards respectively. It..has been suggested that county councils might take the place of education boards. It is submitted that the councils would not give the same consideration to education that the boards, with 50 years' experience, do, and that a system of local rating might be introduced, placing one district at a disadvantage with another. (2) Even under present conditions departmental control has not been satisfactory. Delay in dealing with applications, and hampering restrictions placed upon administration have proved most burdensome in the past. Isolated country districts, even with boards of education at their backs, find it most difficult to obtain a school within their district. Without the power of the boards to support them they would be practically helpless

(3) In a democratic country the first priuciple is government by the people. To attempt to abolish education boards who are elected by school, committees, who are elected by householders, is to attempt to deprive the people of their rights and to take the power of initiative from them. Departmental control will mean control by officials. (4) All committees', particularly those in rural areas, require an intermediary body to press their claims for school facilities. Instance after instance can be quoted where, if boards had not existed, there would have been no education facilities whatever in rural areas.

(5) Such questions as the removal of teachers, their interchange, the supply of relieving teachers, the adjustment of difficulties between teachers and committees and parents, need much more prompt attention than could be afforded by the Central Department. Reference of such matters ■to Wellington would cause endless delay, and would often prove unsatisfactory. (6) It is probable that under the Central Department the Public Works Department would havo control over all building operations. Experience in New Zealand idoes not go to show that this Department would,carry out its work as promptly as an education board (7) Boards have been responsible for many reforms in education (8) The experience of boardß goes to show that most applications are at first declined or deferred, and that only after a strenuous contest are they granted. The Department has proved itself a resisting body rather. than a directing body. As an instance in point-it may be mentioned that recently/the .associated, boards, ...with a full knowledge, of'the finances of school committees, unanimously urged Parliament to increase the grants to committees by £23,000. The chairman of the associated committees asked'for £20,01)0, but the Department urged that £6000 would meet the position. Notwithstanding the representations made, Parliament, under the Bill, was asked to grant only £6000, but later under the estimates it provided another £5000. Committees will thus be still under-financed by £12,000. This is an instance of Departmental method. (9) If education were centralised it must be remembered, that the Minister is rarely an authority on education, and is therefore entirely in the hands of his Departmental officers, from whose decision thbre is seldom any appeal

(10) The conditions: under which education is administered differ so widely in various education districts that local knowledge is absolutely essential to success.

(11) The only difficulty in the past in the way of carrying out the system of education was lack of sufficient monetary provision by the central department. This is proved by the fact that Parliament has recently tremendously increased the votes for education, since it proposes to spend three and a.half millions in the next three years for building requirements alone. (12) Boards maintain that since the inspectorate has been taken over by the Department, the inspectors are not nearly in such close touch, with the local needs of the different education districts as they were when under the control of boards.

(13) It would be impossible for the Department to take the place.of education boards as live factors in the community, and local interest would be reduced in education until it finally vanished. The association urges that candidates for Parliament should be asked to say whether they are in favour, of local control of education by education boards.