EDUCATION BILL

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 83, 8 April 1938, Page 7

EDUCATION BILL

PRINCIPLE APPROVED

INSTITUTE OF RESEARCH

UNIFIED CONTROL

Approval of the general principle of the Education Amendment Bill, | namely, unification of the control of all types of schools within each areaunit of administration was expressed by Dr. A. G. Butchers, when giving evidence before the Education Committee yesterday afternoon on behalf of the Wellington Institute of Educational Research. Dr. Butchers said the institute approved of the divison of the larger education districts. Dealing with courses of education, which are to be prescribed by regulation, the institute considered that the English system, by which local educational authorities submitted schemes, was more, calculated to lead to initiative. All regulations should be submitted to the Advisory Council, or the Education Boards' Council, which, the institute recommended, should be constituted. The proposed council would act in an advisory capacity. Before any important change in the education system,' the matter should be referred to a consultative committee.

DISTRICT SUPERINTENDENTS.

The institute preferred to see the education officer (an officer of the Education Department) replaced by a "District Superintendent of Education (an officer of the board). Unless such a change were made, control of education would be consolidated in the unified districts in the hands of a departmental officer. "The power of initiative and control in each education district will thus lie with the Department, through its. agent, the local education officer, and its power to prescribe courses of study, etc., by regulations," said Dr. Butchers. "This is contrary to the spirit expressed in the explanatory memorandum to the measure, which envisages an extension of local control in education, and not a diminution of it. There is much loss and little gain in giving to the district boards with one hand the power to establish and maintain post-primary, as well as primary, schools, and taking away with the other hand the power of effective control over them all."

All appointments should be made by a national appointments committee. School councils and district education boards should be given the right of appeal to the board of appeal against non-appointments to their staffs of the applicants recommended by them.' The school council should, subject to the general direction of the district board, have full control of the school. The institute hoped that the name "inspector of schools" would be discontinued, and with it many of the inspector's functions, and that in his place "educational advisers" would be appointed whose duty would be to co-operate with the superintendent in the inspiration of staffs and in the co-ordination of the educational activities of the district. District boards should hold office for three years, and should be elected as follows:—Half elected by popular vote; one-quarter composed of school committees .(primary) and councils (post-primary); and one:quarter composed of teachers' organisations. ■ Pro; vision |hould;be Jgade i,pg : women^on the boards, ahfffoFmembers who could be co-opted.

RECONSTITUTED BOARDS.

Mr. W. B. Nicholson said that the technical schools would be better served by the present system than by the one proposed in the Bill. Education would be best served by the abolition of the present boards and the formation of boards, the unit of which would be a post-primary school or (where there was more than' one within a radius of five miles) postprimary schools and the primary, schools feeding such schools. That system would give co-ordination and all advantages proposed under the Bill, but would also retain all the advantages of the present method such as the individuality of schools and local interest and support.