EDUCATION

Evening Post, Volume XCVIII, Issue 136, 6 December 1919, Page 11

EDUCATION

ABOLITION OF BOARDS

THE TEACHERS' VIEW.

In reply to the "Defence of Education Boards" issued recently by the Education Boards' Association, the New Zealand Educational Listitute has published a statement which is, in part, as follows : —

Administration and Local Control.— The paragraph of the manifesto that deals with administration shows a misunderstanding of the educational needs and movements of the times. It assumes that centralisation is the object of reformers; but this is entirely wrong. What is wanted is a National Educational Board, or Administrative Council if that name is preferred, to give general direction to the system; but the key of the situation is local administration. In point of fact the board system embodies and exemplifies all the evils of centralisation multiplied nine times, since there are nine boards. Every member of every school committee in the Dominion has had experience of the difficulty of securing attention to the business of the schools, especially those at a distance from the board's centre. What is wanted is the power for the people of each locality to do their own business ; the boards represent a clumsy and expensive incubus that represses local energy and kills local interest. It is local knowledge, local energy, and local interest that constitute the breath of life of an education system. Make each district responsible, under the guidance of a National, not a parochial, Education Board, for the educational progress of its own people, and give the people in each district power to administer its affairs in conformity with local needs and circumstances, and the stagnation that has fallen upon our system will pass away. It is only when local interest and energy and enthusiasm are given scope and encouragement that education will assume that position in the national life that its importance demands.

Reforms.—"Boards hp,ve been responsible for many reforms," say the compilers of the manifesto—but they do not venture to name any of them. Can the compilers name a single reform that has originated with the Education Boards? Can they, further, name a single important reform that has not been opposed by most, if not all, of the boards?

It is, however, gratifying to note that even Education Boards are not totally impervious to the spirit of reform, as shown by the fact that they have officially accepted the important principles of co-ordinated control of the various sections of educational work, and of an Administrative Council of Education.

Loss of Functions.—ln their introduction the compilers of the manifesto. assert that in the main the boards have done their work well: and their only evidence in support of the claim is the high reputation our soldiers have won in the war. The New Zealand soldier has been made the foundation on which to base a great many fantastic theories and untenable pleas, but surely none has been more fantastic or untenable than this. But have the boards, "in the main, done their work well"? If so, how has it come about that from quite early in the history of the system it was found that the boards could not, or did not, do their work well, and that section after section of their work has been taken out of their hands, in order that it might be done better? To.such a length has this process gone that there is only one function of any importance remaining to them.This is the appointing of teachers, and' this function the principal boards have persistently refused to perform in the manner prescribed by the Act. Control of Teaching Staff.—The compilers would have been wise to omit from their manifesto all reference to this subject.1 If there is one thing more than another in which the board system has failed to justify itself, this is the thing. The teaching service is a national service, and must be nationally administered if the nation is to get out of it the best work of which it is capable. This does not mean that it should become part of the Civil Service; it is a totally different service from that and requires different treatment. But while the system itself is inherently bad, the administration of it by the boards has been worse. . The history of the teaching service, as directed by the boards, presents a record of inefficiency and injustice that has done more than even the meagre salaries to drive out of the service the more enterprising teachers who were free to go out. The State will never get such, a teaching staff as it needs until these evils are removed and the service placed on a satisfactory, basis under National control. The boards have persistently maintained a provincial and parochial attitude, and this has had an exceedingly detrimental effect on the service.

Political Influence—The manifesto alludes to the danger of the intervention of political influence. The actual fact is that political influence has been one of the chief bugbears of the system. Membership of an Education Board has always been a favourite side-line of politicians. The boards have been much more serviceable to politicians than to education, and as a result the political members of boards have in most cases regarded the board's business, more from the political than the educational standpoint. A similar propensity led to the exclusion of M.P.'s from Land Boards and other State Boards, and it would be an advantage if the same rule applied to Education Boards. Owing to tho indirect method of election of board members, and their consequent freedom from democratic control, there is especial opportunity for the intrusion of political interest, and education has suffered in consequence. Finance. —The manifesto says "the only difficulty . . . was lack of sufficient monetary provision by the Central Department." This is putting the boot on the wrong foot. The money has to be supplied by Parliament, and as the boards were the administering bodies in education it was for them to give Parliament and people a lead, and point out what ought to be provided. Have they ever done this? There have been innumerable members of boards in Parliament : how many of them have, in Parliament or at the board's table, taken up an attitude in favour of reform and progress in national education? Reform has had to be forced upon them from without • it has never in any important instance emanated from within. It is the people who will have to demand from / Parliament that education be adequately endowed. An important consideration is the expensiveness of the board system. On the whole, the boards have become merely agents for distributing Govern-, ment money ; and nearly a third of the funds at their discretionary disposal are eaten up in expenses of administration.

The Remedy.—Since the board system has thus completely failed to meet the needs of the time, what is to take its place? Tho boards themselves, at their conference, agreed on the first step, the insitution of an Administrative Council of Education, which is a. National Board of Education under another name. The next step is plainly the giving of power to the local authority, committee or whatever it may be, to administer the educational affairs of the locality in accordance with local needs, so that the people themselves may have opportunity to show their interest in the work of their own schools, and thus infuse into the system that vitality and vigour which

the present cumbercome, expensive, and out-of-date machinery so effectually crushes. " The more the subject is studied the more evident becomes the conclusion that the solution of the question is to be found in the proposal of the New Zealand Educational Institute for a National Board to direct, and local Education authorities to administer.