TOWARDS REFORM

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 145, 22 June 1938, Page 10

TOWARDS REFORM

As a tentative approach to some practical, if partial, solution of the vexed problem bf New Zealand university education the action of the Auckland University College Council, at its meeting on Monday, in setting up a committee to consider the. reorganisation of the college on a full-time system will be heartily and generally welcomed. The duty of the committee, in terms of the motion for its establishment, will not be to go into great detail, for that would be out of the question at this stage, but to study the position broadly and make recommendations accordingly to the council. Its attention will be confined naturally as a preliminary to the Auckland institution as part of the .University of New Zealand, but the principle at stake concerns the other university colleges also and will no doubt be taken up by them in turn. The present system, which has been styled that of a "night school," is far from satisfactory. The vast majority of the students are occupied during the day in earning a living under competitive conditions, and in the evening attend lectures, sometimes every night of the working week. They are to term examinations two or three times a year to test their proficiency and they sit once a 2; year for the section of the degree which they are taking. On their success in these examinations depends their future i career. If they fail, they have, if they decide to continue, to go through it aIV again. How they manageao find time to study is a marvel;' and a mystery. That so ,j many succeed in passing examinations which in quantity and quality ofSwirk dbmanded equalthe standards.:oySbejfull-time universities of tribute to the grit and intelligences of the young New Zealander of bcjth sexes. But trie process they go through cannot be described as.edncation in the true sense, and 'thejstrain it imposes on the mental and physical health of those who go tnrough the ordeal, the loss of social;tife, and the abstraction from prajctical affairs probably outweigh the benefits to the individual and the community.

The evils.,of the New Zealand university system have been recognised by professccs and students alike for over a generation, but strenuous efforts have 1 failed.to secure radical reforms. 'The curriculum has been altered to I a certain extent, but in essentials /remains the same, with a mission defined by Dr. Beaglehole in his history of the university as

not to facilitate the diffusion of that culture which its founders sincerely desired to see spread from one end of the colony to the other; but to provide cheap professional schools for the supply 'of duly certificated lawyers, doctors, bank-clerks, dentists, and teachers..

This mission, as the historian points out, is|not contemptible. It is part of thelf unction of a university in a democracy, but it is not the all-in-all. There; must always be the part-time student, and any reform must not neglject his interests, which on the face of it might lie in the direction of a Wire practical curriculum within the/scope of the time he can, in fairness to himself, give to it But a true university must be, in the main atji'least, a full-time institution, and it)is on these lines that Auckland is moving. The aim was well set out by the mover (Mr. H. G. Cousins) as "to find a way to set free economically the most promising of the country's youth for three years, so that their minds would be completely free for the great effort of their university life." To do this something more than the present bursaries will be needed. English universities have a far larger proportion of scholarships, exhibitions, and bursaries available for the promising student. Mr. Cousins suggested Government assistance in the form of loans to be repaid by the student. For 4000 students throughout New Zealand, he said, only about £80,000 a year would be necessary. The sum is not, too great for the results that might be achieved. But before anything is done, the whole university system should be overhauled from top to bottom with a view to reorganisation on lines suitable to the true needs of [ the New Zealand community. In such an effort there is room for the • fullest co-operation of all interested in university education.