EDUCATION AFFAIRS.

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 August 1915, Page 2

EDUCATION AFFAIRS.

MINISTER'S BUSY PROGRAMME. CARE OF PRIMARY SCHOOLS. [•enoiAHas nds iawais umv samx] WELLINGTON, This Day. The new Minister of Education, the Hon. J. A. Hanan, has a "Busy >time ahead. He will have to present to Parliament the report of the Education Boundaries_ Commission, which had to cut out several existing education districts so as to fit in with the new system of large administration areas adopted in the Education Act of last session. Members representing the districts which the report proposes to extinguish will no doubt make a lively protest when it comes before the House for adoption. • The appointment of an Assistant Director-General of Education at a s v alary of £750 has shortly to be made, the matter being under consideration by the Public Service Commissioners.. Four senior inspectors have also to be appointed to complete the inspectorial staff, which is now under the control of the Education Department. Mr. Hanan's well-known Sympathy with primary school teachers has made his appointment very popular in education circles. A Dominion grading of teachers, the logical outcome of last, year's Education Act, is one of the ideals which he would like to put inio practice.

"My chief aim," remarked the Minister to the correspondent of the Greymouth 'Star,' "will be to improve and strengthen the primary side of our educational system. This is the department which educates all our, children, a majority of whom never go further along the educational course. For that reason alone it must receive special attention. "Let the foundation be on the soundest and best lines," added the Minister, "so that we may build upon it a superstructure ' of the Higher branches of education that will bring lasting benefits not only to those who receive the instruction but to the people of the Dominion as a whole.'