WILL IT BE CARRIED OUT ?

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 62, 10 September 1925, Page 4

WILL IT BE CARRIED OUT ?

Inasmuch as the University Commission has given us a view of our higher education system as it appears to other eyes, its report is of great value. Wisely considered and systematically applied the recommendations will help us to correct weaknesses which have developed," and particularly to check the growing tendency to parochialism. There is not space in a brief article to comment upon all the main recommendations, arid we must therefore refer only to a few outstanding points. First and most important is the proposal to make the University a federal' organisation.: The aim is to secure greater unity of control in shaping a University 1 policy, while giving to each constituent college wide powers of operation in carrying out its,share of the work. New governing bodies are proposed for the University, but these will replace the present Senate and, Board.of Studies. The principal change in government is in the method of selecting the members ■ of ;. the' governing bodies. While .there will still be representation of the 1 colleges on the University Council, there will be a majority'of members who. will be chosen without regard to districts or colleges. They may prove parochially-minded, but they should not; be. They should be able to fake the broad view, which the Senate has not taken, and, in such matters as the establishment of special schools, prepare a policy 1 which will be for the good of the whole rather than the special advantage of a part.

The recommendations regarding the secondary schools and their examinations d<^ not go as far as. we hoped. r The recommended substitution of two examinations for matriculation and the proposed constitution of a Secondary Schools' Board/should largely remove the, ill effects which the University entrance examination; has had in setting a standard and shaping a course for many pupils who never proceedi to the University. But it appears to us that there must be still greater changes in secondary schools' policy- if the education is to be suited to the varying' needs of the many boys and girls who now receive it. Possibly the.Secondary Schools Board, by a gradual process, will be better able than .the' Commission to bring about such changes. Butif this is to be done, there must be a firm determination not" to allow the report of the Commission, to be shelved. The Minister of Education has expressed his cordial agreement with: the main recommendations, \and he proposes . to submit the report to the interested , educational bodies. It is not to be expected that these latter will accept the recommendations to the last letter, but they may fairly be asked to set on one side their own prejudices and to build upon the plan which, the" Commission has submitted. "If they do thisj realising that some -reform is essential, they will at least prepare the way: for an advance towards those ideals of higher education which the Commission has outlined. . : ,',."' .