TIME FOR A CHANGE

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 146, 23 June 1938, Page 11

TIME FOR A CHANGE

EDUCATION REFORM

"We have reached a stage here in New Zealand when all things are propitious for a change," remarked Mr. F. Martyn Renner, principal of Rcngotai College, when speaking last night at the annual meeting of the Parents' Association. "The abolition of the proficiency examination and the elimination of the senior free place test give teachers a free road. I hope to see the day when the university entrance examination will no longer be the final and ultimate test of a child's so-called education, and some fairer and juster - means be evolved of estimating the value of the education given. "Still more gratifying to most teachers, I firmly believe, are the comprehensive changes forecast in the recently-introduced Education Amendment Bill. If this does nothing else, it will do this: It will reduce the administration machinery from 54 controlling authorities to 12; it will save an administration bill of between £70,000 and £80,000 per annum; it will bring into closer contact with our schools the people who count most— namely, the parents;* and it will break the barriers existing between teachers of different types of schools. We hope it will give us one service and one salary scale. As far as it affects the child, it will enable us to make its education 'a period of continuous growth.' It will make this great social service [what it should be—wholly democratic." ;