EDUCATION ISSUES.

Evening Star, Issue 22232, 9 January 1936, Page 8

EDUCATION ISSUES.

Fifteen years ago, as we recalled recently, an amendment was made to the New Zealand law, to be brought into force by Order in Council, for raising the compulsory school age from fourteen to fifteen years. The change has not yet been made. In Britain it is now being made after a like period of delay. Mr Nash, Minister of Finance, has hinted that he would like to see the age raised in this country to sixteen years, but he is very sensible of the difficulties. Practically the same difficulties have delayed British and New Zealand action to the present time; To raise the school age more teachers and also more schools are required. Far-reaching effects on industry have also to be considered. The British Bill makes provision for all these things. It has been pointed out at Home that the new measure cannot fail to modify the position of those industries which are purely repetitive in character and employ large numbers of boys and girls under fifteen. Employers would need time to recruit older workers or to replace hand labour by machines. The withdrawal of an age group or a portion of an age group from employment will entail greater reorganisation of industry in the South of England than in the areas which are still affected by depression of trade. Another difficulty has been in providing for cases of hardship .where the family income would be too severely curtailed by keeping children longer at school. It has not been announced how the British Bill proposes to deal with this problem, but one suggestion for meeting it, which the Government seemed at least ready to consider, shows how far Socialism has advanced where a Labour Government does not bear sway. The proposal was that maintenance allowances should be paid to parents to compensate for possible loss of wages. Another argument, that some “practical” or duller children are better jt work than at school, is claimed to have been disproved by recent experience. In the right schools, with courses suited to them, it is maintained, every child can benefit up to the age of fifteen. Though the Bill to extend the education age is now being brought forward in Britain, and can be expected to pass this year, it will nob be till 1938 or early in 1939 that the age will actually be raised, as the result of preparations that will be needed in the meantime, and in New Zealand, also, no doubt, there will be delays. Home teachers, naturally, are delighted at the prospect of an extension of the school age. Probably they will make the best of a pronouncement of Sir Michael Sadler, chairman of a committee which is investigating the examination system, that examinations must be mended, not ended. That was also the opinion of a committee set up in 1931, whose report, based on exhaustive inquiries, has just been published. The report expresses the opinion that examinations are necessary as a test of efficiency. It suggests that careful and systematic experiment will be needed to devise methods of examination which will be free from the uncertainties of the present system, and an authoritative comment upon this pronouncement is that further investigations and experiments would be justified in the public interest, even though additional expenditure might be involved.