VISIT TO HOME TOWN

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 146, 18 December 1933, Page 10

VISIT TO HOME TOWN

AUSTRALIAN HEADMASTER

EDUCATION IN COMMONWEALTH

In the past twenty-nine, years., the Rev. C. T. Parkinson, headmaster of King's School, Parramatta, Sydney, an arrival by the AVanganella today, has seen very little of. New Zealand, his homeland. Mr. Parkinson, was born in the shadow of Mt. Egmont, his father for many years being the owner and editor of the Hawera "Star," and it is .his intention to spend Christmas at Hawera. Speaking to a "Post" representative on board tho AVanganella this morning, Mr. Parkinson, who is an old boy of Wellington College, said he left New Zealand in 1905 for England, where ho went to Oxford University, and except for a brief visit in 1922, when he camo out on business, he had not been in the Dominion since. After leaving the university he was curate -of a parish in England for a time, and at the outbreak of war he joined up as.a chaplain. After a time he resigned his chaplainship to join the artillery. He did not start school-teaching until after the war. In 1919 he joined the staff of Christ's Hospital/the famous old Blue Coat School. Mr. Parkinson was on the staff of this school for 13 years. _ He took over the headmastership of King's School, Parramatta, in February of this year, and ho said the year had been the most absorbing and interesting in his life. There was hard work to do, but it had been very interesting. King's School was the only school in Australia that had celebrated its'centenary, which was a wj-iiderful achievement for any school in the .Commonwealth. It was! founded by Bishop Broughton, who was I the only Bishop of Australia in the J time when New Zealand was regarded j as part of New South AA rales. EDUCATION IN AUSTRALIA. Mr. Parkinson said the education system in Australia was being reviewed at the present time by a very influential committee, which had been sitting for the past seven months and was going into the question of leaving certificates among other things.. He was inclined to think ono result of the com- j mittee's investigations would be that the system under which leaving certificates were granted would be altered; that" the examination test would be taken earlier than at present and would be succeeded by what might be called an honours course. Mr. Parkinson expressed the view that it was no good cramming boys who were going in for certain careers with useless subjects for years. After being put through a general efficiency test within a reasonable period, provision should be made for them to specialise. It also seemed possible, said Mr. Parkinson, that as a result of the committee's inquiries, an endeavour would be made to establish a schools' board, representative- of the Education Department, the State schools, and the privately-owned schools, and into their hands would be given the control of the curriculum,' the classification of schools, and the defining of examination standards. In general it would result in a great deal of the authority which at the moment was held by the Department being put into the hands of practical schoolmasters and professors.