COST OF EDUCATION

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 20, 24 July 1922, Page 3

COST OF EDUCATION

Bi*,-*-The Council of Education, the Educational Institute, the various education boards, some of the school committees, several other bodies, and a number of interested and interesting individuals having criticised, mostly adversely, the article on. the cost of education you were good enough to publish for me some weeks ago, I am sure you will allow me a few words in reply. I will be as brief as I can be, but have no wish to evade any of the points raised by my critics. The main counts in the ' indictment directed against my articles by 1 these high authorities are. (1) That they were "inspired"; (2) that they offered violence to the high ideals entertained by the founders of the national system of education ; (3) that their purpose was to create a prejudice against the education boards, and to assist in bringing about their abolition and the centralisation of all authority in the head office in Wellington; and (4) that "enormous" was not the right ward to apply to the increase in the expenditure upon education. As for the charge that tho articles were "inspired", this is not the most serious of the counts, though it probably is intended to imply I expressed the views of someone in authority who preferred to remain' in the background. If this really is the intention of my critics, I can assure them that I have received no inspiration from the Minister or the secretary of his Department, or tha Director of Education or any less exalted person who might desire me to seek admission to your columns under false pretences. My sole purpose in writing was to direct public attention to expenditure on education which I thought, and) still think, could be saved without impairing the system in a single particular. I should be sorry indeed to think I , had been guilty of offering any affront to "the founders of the Dominion's education system," but one of my Canterbury critics, apparently speaking for | the local education board, wonders what I the late Sir Charles Bowen and the late ] Mr. Alfred Saunders would have, thought of my suggestions towards economy. It was my good fortune, in the days of my comparative youth, to he on particularly intimate terms with both these gentlemen, and I would subscribe wholeheartedly to any high tribute that might be paid to their memory. But my own wonder—using the word as my critic does—is what they would'have thought of the recent growth of the cost of education. ' - ' Sir Charles Bowen, the author of the original Education Act, proposed in tho first instance to ensure economical administration by requiring parente to pay a certain part of the cost of the system: He abandoned the proposal after the second reading of the Bill, and, until the very last years of his useful life, continued to serve the cause of education with consistent devotion and ability. But, while insisting upon efficiency, he kept a very jealous eye on the expenditure, fearing that by its very cost the system might fall into disfavour, and in some time of national stress suffer at the hands of an economising Government, i As for Mr. Alfred Saunders, those of us who remember his views on public finance will have no difficulty in imagining what he would have thought and said had he -witnessed the expenditure upon education increase by nearly a million and a-half in eight years without providing any appreciable improvement in the system. j ■ " I I certainly had no intention either to belittle the very excellent work done by , the education boards or >to assist—if anyone is seeking that .end—in bringing about their abolition. But surely whenit .is shown that many thousands of pounds a year could be saved by transferring a certain amount of routine administrative work from the boards to the central office the transfer ought to be made. This would not detract in any way from the dignity of the boards or from their usefulness. The Minister of Education, by tho way, has stated definitely that he ,is not contemplating the abolition of the boards or the school committees, and this being the case, my critics may dismiss from their minds any unworthy suspicions my inadequate statement of my caee may have provoked. There remains that i*ord; "enormous". I am not disposed to admit it was misapplied to the recent increase in the expenditure upon education, but if my critics prefer to call it '.'very large" we will not quarrel,over the measure of a "mere adjective. The expenditure in 1914 was £1,131,755, and in 1922 £2,580,562. In Mr: Alfred Saunders's time the expenditure,, approximately, was 10s per head of population. To-day it, approximately, is 50s per head. Of course, every responsible member of the community desires that the expenditure upon education shall be as generous as the country can afford. The Education Department is the very last place in which cheese-paring economies should be attempted. But we have te ask ourselves what they country really can] afford. Or, if my iritics would rather put it another way, how much the country can afford to reduce expenditure en education. It can afford nothing that would make for inefficiency. But, as I am advised, it could afford to save a very large amount of duplication, un-1 necessary work, costly methods and superfluous frills, and a certain amount of waste. Mr., Massey is at his wits' end to make the revenue and the expenditure of the country balance, and education should not he the last of tho Departments to give him the assistance he so urgently requires.—l ani, etc., YOUR CONTRIBUTOR. 22nd July. . |