N.Z. EDUCATION

Grey River Argus, 13 November 1935, Page 6

N.Z. EDUCATION

VIEWS OF TEACHERS. WELLINGTON, October 31. Keen disappointment at the lack of definiteness in the Government’s educational policy, as announced in its manifesto, was expressed by Mr. G. R. Ashbridge, .Secretary of the New Zealand Educational Institute, in the course of an interview to-day. “AH we are told is that the Director of Education is investigating educational conditions overseas, and that ‘our educational system will be revised and improved in the light of New Zealand conditions and advanced practice abroad,’ ’” said Mr. Ashbridge. “The statement is vague in the extreme and completely lacking in any positive indication of what the Government intends to do. Indeed it arouses the suspicion that the absence of the Director is being used as a convenient excuse for inaction and delay. It cannot be said too strongly that while the Director may learn much that is useful during his trip abroad, the main needs of education in the country are as obvious as they are pressing, and that nothing that the Director can discover can alter this fact. The people connected with education, who know the effects of the drastic retrenchments which have been made and the impossibility of progress under present conditions, are certainly in no mood to give the Government a blank cheque. “What is wanted is a clear and unequivocal answer to such questions as these;. Does the Government intend to implement the report of the Education Committee recommending the readmission of the five-year-olds to public schools and if so, when? Does, it propose to extend facilities for teacher training to permit of a reduction in the size of classes in primary schools? Does it intend to increase the allowances to school committees to such an extent as to permit schools to be properly cleaned and heated? How long does it propose to pay fully-trained and certificated teachers doing fulltime and fully responsible work at rationed rates? What is it going to do about the school leaving age? Or about our present, costly and cumbrous system of educational administration? “People connected with education, whatever their political colour may be, are looking for something definite on these and other questions The last thing they want to see is education made a shuttlecock between contending parties; they would like to see development proceed, as it did in England for some years, on the basis of a common agreement between parties. But they are certainly not going to be deceived by the suggestion that education policy cannot be formulated until the Director returns from abroad.