THE EDUCATIONAL FUTURE

Evening Star, Issue 21285, 14 December 1932, Page 2

THE EDUCATIONAL FUTURE

CRITICISM LEVELLED AT DEPARTMENT TRENCHANT COMMENT BY TECHNICAL SCHOOL PRINCIPAL A portion of the animal report submitted to the King Edward Technical College Board of Managers by the principal (Mr Aldridge) yesterday afternoon largely took the form of critical comment directed at the policy of the Education Department. “It is now common to hear education spoken of as being in a state of flux,” said Mr Aldridge. “In so far as the public generally come to see educational questions not as settled once for all, but as liable to be revised from time to time, there is a gain, but in matters which touch the life of a community as closely as does education, there is always danger that a simple and apparently obvious stop may prove the wrong one, unless one is genuinely familiar with the tendencies at work within the schools themselves. In technical schools to discover and provide for new tendencies has always been part of the job. “ After carefully reading the last departmental report, which came to hand only a few weeks ago, one comes to the conclusion that the department is anxious to set up as many intermediate schools and combined schools as possible in order to lessen the number of varieties of post primary schools, the inference being that technical high schools are likely to become fewer. Support for this 'inference is given by the fact that the superintendent of Technical Education’s section of the report takes the form of a statement dealing with the contribution that the technical school lias made to education in New Zealand. His report reads like a defence of the technical high school; it reaches an extremely high level of judicial comment. “It is unfortunate that one should need such stray indications as these for a guide into New Zealand’s educational future, for it has been the custom hitherto for the department to take teachers into its confidence, and by no means rare for it to consult them. In times like these, when the methods by which the department exercises authority are open to much searching criticism from many sections of the public, one would like to see pains taken to publish, patiently and at some length, ripe and considered schemas for the reorganisation of the system’. Radical changes introduced by sheer authority needlessly irritate those who are, after all, co-workers with the department in a national service. “ Like every other section of the Government service, technical schools have had to face very considerable reductions in thir income, amounting to no less than 46 per cent, of their incidental expenses. The full effect of this drastic curtailment has not yet been felt, and one cannot yet say how much further we ought to reduce services which we have learned to take for granted. Many unseen economies have been effected this yar: the board’s staff has been reduced, all permanent improvements have been postponed (with the exception of the mechanical stoker, which may yet be a means to greater economy), and, more'serious still, tile upkeep of buildings and playgrounds has had to fall far behind. In this direction a heavy expenditure is likely to mount up in the near future. “But a lessened revenue was only to be expected in difficult times. I'or the other new act of rule from Wellington—namely, the imposition upon all second-year pupils, without due notice, of a uniform intermediate examination—no one was prepared, this merits more than a passing reference The Minister’s annual report for 19M explains the move thus: ‘lt was . . felt that the system (award of senior free places) should bo tested periodically by holding a definite and, as far as possible, uniform examination of candidates. By this means both the school principals and the officers of the department would know whether or not the standard of appraisement of the pupils’ fitness for further secondary education was sufficiently high and reasonably uniform throughout the dominion.’ The words used are fair words, but they are not likely to rouse gentle feelings in any one who has seen something of the unjust, wasteful, if not almost futile, examination that has been thrust upon post-primary schools. “ Of the 9,000 candidates who were to sit, almost one-third could have been ruled out as unlikely to pass if the department had consulted heads of schools. Of the remainder, since teachers were to be virtually coaches, selectors of subjects, supervisors, and examiners, it is hard to soo why the ponderous machinery of the examinations branch should be set in motion to create the fiction that candidates would be known only by their code numbers. The department, in its attachment to the idea of uniformity, seems not to have realised the injustice of prescribing subjects and syllabuses which had not been included in courses already approved; nor did it seem ready for the numerous amendments which its scheme was itself fated to undergo up till practically the commencement of the examination. To impose an examination under these conditions was to rob it of a great deal of its value.

“ But the point above all others which condemns it, and which makes one wonder if the department is not to suffer a serious loss of prestige through this experiment, is that no attention was paid to the fact that the majority of second-year pupils would never have sat such an examination, or indeed any other public test, except under compulsion: that they, at any rate, knew themselves not to be candidates who would be successful in exacting and long continued tests, that they never had any intention of claiming from the Government free education up to the ago of nineteen, but merely asked for the right to remain at school, following a course of profitable study until they could earn their living. “ And now a number of embarrassing questions arise. A number of pupils have sat an unfair test, and will have failed. What is to happen to them next year? Again, what docs the department consider to he the duty of schools towards next year’s supply of secondyear pupils? Teachers will assume it to be their duty to prepare all and sundry for another examination of this kind unles the department disclaims the last one; and if so, what did the Director of Education really mean when he spoke recently against regarding examinations as the chief end of schools? Again, why was the test set in 1932? This year’s official reports make it clear that inspectors were fully aware of the 1930 proficiency passes having been given too liberally? What was to be gained in proving that fact twice over ? The more one reflects, the more slippery seems to be the ground on which the department stands. “ Surely the department would have been wiser to devote 1932 to working out a new set of senior free place regulations —a work that is long overdue — regulations that should take into ac-

count the varying needs of pupils of different types. That work still needs to be done, but schools may be pardoned now for questioning whether the department as a whole grasps the problem before it.” The report was approved, and it was agreed that a copy of it he forwarded to the Minister of Education.