WORKERS’ EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION

Evening Star, Issue 20312, 22 October 1929, Page 9

WORKERS’ EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION

THE WOULD CONFERENCE The membership of the World Conference on Adult itducation, which was held at Cambridge at the end of August and at which the Otago W.E.A. was represented by Mi - and Mrs R. S. Dunn, was largely drawn from the North European countries and from the United States. The two biggest foreign contingents were the American and the German, followed by the Poles, and then by Czecho-SJovakia, a country which has done as much as any for the education of the workers. Prance was represented by the I nspector-General in the Ministry of Public Instruction, but in the main the Latin countries were scantily represented, a fact which is not unconnected with the backward state of the adult education movement in the So<>th of Europe. There were sixteen representatives from Japan. The conforenc; was presided over by a Swedish member of Parliament. BROADCASTING AND ADULT EDUCATION. Among the most interesting discussions was that on the educational value of broadcasting, wind) was opened by the chairman of the Advisory Committee of the Middle German Broadcasting Company. The general secretary of the International Broadcasting Union emphasised the unusual need that existed everywhere to-day for a well-educated public. We were at cross-roads in the march of civilisation, and among the routes from which we had to make a choice was the load to destruction. Yet everywhere around us there was arising a maze of ingenious machinery for the exploitation of the partly educated. The public was becoming dazed by propaganda, a large proportion of which was " bluff.” It was being “ jazzed ” mentally as well as aurally, and was within serious risk of losing all independence of thought. This speaker pointed out the difficulties in the way of arranging broadcasting programmes that were exclusively educational. To make educative broadcasting entertaining would require considerable research and not a little taet._ Very much would depend upon the choice of lecturers. Experience had undoubtedly proved that a brilliant scholar was not necessarily a good teacher, and similarly a successful lecturer in a classroom might not necessarily be the best equipped for the broadcasting of educative material. Success in broadcasting depended largely upon the ability of the speaker to translate all that was attractive in his personality into vocal equivalents, and to devise an appealing method of presentation. NATURAL HISTORY. Elsewhere in this issue of the ' Star ’ appears an advertisement drawing attention to the preliminary meeting of the summer natural history class, which is to be held at the University _on Thursday evening. In previous sessions this class, wifh a programme of openair excursions, has proved exceedingly successful, both for the interest aroused by the wort: undertaken, and also as a means for holding together the members of the W.E.A. at a time when the work of most of the ordinary classes has been suspended. This summer the tutor for the class will be Mr L. W. M'Caskill, B.Ag., lecturer in agriculture at the Training College, and the members of earlier classes have been circularised with a view to making another active group of student members. ANNUAL MEETING. Preparations for the annual meeting in November are now in hand, and the Tutorial Class Committee and District Council will shortly be summoned to receive the final reports on the year’s work. At the same time a skeleton programme for next year’s work will be submitted for the approval of these bodies. Until the appointment of a now full-time tutor has been made it will not be possible to work out such a programme in full detail, but it will not be difficult to determine the general nature of the work to be attempted. The District Council will also bo called on to consider the allocation of the grant made to the W.E.A. this year by the trustees of the Dunedin Savings Bank.