THE NEW SCOTCH EDUCATION CODE.

Evening Star, Issue 10932, 15 May 1899, Page 1

THE NEW SCOTCH EDUCATION CODE.

INSPECTION AND EXAMINATION.

For some time past there have been indications that large reforms were being planned in public education in Scotland; and these have now become an accomplished fact in the new code which was recently placed in the hands of members of Parliament.

"All the changes," says a circular .issued by the department last August, "are directed towards one end—namely, the raising of the standard of elementary education in Scotland." Under the old system the subjects taught in the schools were of. three kinds—elementary, class, and specific. On a certain fixed day there was an inspection, and, according to the performances of individual scholars on that day, the grants of so much per head were recommended to the school. This was the carrying out of Mr Lowe's famous principle of " payment by results," and, as is well known to everyone interested in education, it has long "been vigorously opposed in England and in Scotland by all the most intelligent inspectors and critics, from Matthew Arnold downwards. Its effect was, among other evils, to encourage a school to increase the number of subjects offered on the chance of obtaining an increase in the grant; to promote " cram " instead of sound teaching ; and, in a word, to sacrifice both general efficiency and the individual scholar to an unsound method of organisation. Another feature of Scotch, as of English, elementary schools has been the institution of "standards"— that is to say, fixed classes or categories in one or other of which a child was placed, no exception being made for any part of his work. A boy belonged, for example, to the Fifth Standard, though, perhaps, his arithmetic may have been up to the marks of the Sixth, and his spelling only on a level with the Fourth. No higher-grade school would admit such a mode of classification for a moment; an English public schoolboy is in one form for classics, in another for mathematics, and in another for modern languages; but the elementary schoolboy or girl has had to submit to the cast-iron rule of the standard. Perhaps the most important change made by the new Scotch Code is the abolition of these three things—the fixed date of inspection, the multiplicity of small grants, and the standards. In future the inspector is to have much greater discretion as to the time and mode of inspection ; the system of awarding grants will be entirely changed, and the system of classification according to standards will be largely modified. To put the matter briefly, the efficiency of a school will be judge'd and grants will be made according as it approximates to a normal type of excellence, which section 19 of the new code attempts to define with more or less precision. An ordinary school is regarded by the code as divided into two departments, consisting of the children who have, and those who have not, obtained the merit certificate. Those who have not obtained it are divided into infants, juniors, and seniors, and all three are to be confined exclusively to what are known as elementary subjects—that is, reading, writing, and* arithmetic, with, in the case of the elder children, obiect lessons (which might perhaps be dignified with the name of very elementary science), the outlines of geography, and the main facts of British history. An important point to notice is that, up till now, the children might offer at the inspection, in addition to these " elementary " and " class " subjects, others under the name of " specific" subjects, such as languages, geometry, etc., for each of which a grant would be given. By the new system of organisation this will be radically changed. Before any of these specific or higher subjects can be offered, a pupil must have obtained that merit certificate which we have just named—-a certificate, that is to say, which will be given entirely for elementary subjects, but only for real proficiency in them. That is to say, a child must reach what might be almost called an honor standard; in reading, writing, spelling, and the elementary rules of arithmetic before he can go further. To obtain this merit certificate will be the goal set before the child while engaged upon elementary work, and when he has obtained it he is encouraged to remain at school by the payment of grants on a much higher scale than those given for elementary work. While, for example, the normal grant given for children over ten years of ago who have not obtained the merit certificate is to be 225, the normal grant on the average attendance of scholars who have obtained the certificate, and are studying the higher subjects, will be 50s, which m.iy be increased by onetenth in cases of exceptional efficiency. It is important to notice that, throughout the schools, whether in awarding grants for elementary subjects, or in assigning merit certificates, or in subsequent examinations, the main object of the inspector will be to convince himself, not of the accomplishments of this or that individual boy or girl, but of the efficiency of the school. An interesting circular issued by Sir Henry Craik last August says :—" My lords do not propose to test the attainments of pupils at the merit certificate stage in class subjects individually. It will be the duty of the inspector in every school from which candidates for the merit certificate are presented to satisfy himself that the curriculum in class subjects is of sufficient breadth, that it affords adequate exercise for the various faculties of the children, and that instruction in the subjects selected is regularly and systematically given to all the pupils. . . . They will altogether refuse to issue merit certificates on account of the scholars in any school in which the inspector reports that the class instruction is unduly restricted in scope or defective in quality."