EDUCATION.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 8 November 1927, Page 8

EDUCATION.

advancement association

FIRST MEETING IN ■WELLINGTON.

abolition of education BOARDS.

An Association for the Advancement of Educati on has been recently formed in AVbllimrton and it is hope-di to extend ( ' e movement to other centres. A meeting of the newly-formed \ sso' iation was held in the W ellington Technical College last week Professor W. 11. Gould presiding. The subject for discussion was the “The Proposed Addition of Education Boards— Would it mean Centradisation ?'. Mr G. I. London, member of the Wellington Education Board, Mr H A- V ’arkn - son. M.A., Secretary of the New Zealand Educational Institute and Mr. L. Hennessey, member of the School Committees’ Association, were the principal speakers. In his introductory remarks the chairman emphasised the fact that the association had at present no. policy in tliis or any other detail ot education, its one policy was the welfare ot education. and it considered this policy rould best be achieved by making the association a forum where all shades of opinion might he. expressed. lhe rrreat object of the .association was to promote an interest in education, and it believed that in doing this it was promoting a national seivice.

Mr. London expressed himself as thoroughly out of sympathy with that section of the public which thought there was no immediate fear of deterioration in our educational system. Despite the splendid work being done m our schools, there was evidence that an attempt was being made to standardise the children. This was greatly to be feared.. It seemed to him one of the essential objects of education should be to seek to develop the individuality of the child, and inspire in him a reverence for his own personal it-.* The tendency towards a standardised product was always character.istic of centralised administration. “The fate of education boards,” said Mr London, “is in the balance, and if they are abolished, further responsibility'will be imposed upon the Government in the control of. Education. I am strongly of the opinion that the general interest in education should be extended rather than limited, and that the mass of people should haie a bigo'er voice, and be given wider opportunities to further its cause m the community.” Mr. London urged the most careful defence of an institution which had been so helpful in the past. Mr. Parkinson urged that for a. practical purposes the boards had already been abolished. They existe. merely in name and held meetings bul thev were of little value and had litta power compared with the powers they had exercised in the past. Mr. Parkin son move a striking instance of thu in a matter that had come under, fin notice that morning. He had received a letter regarding the granting o leave of absence to a teacher for om dav The board had replied to tin application that it had no discretion ary- power in the matter! lhe Educa tional Institute had been charged wit favourin'’’ centralisation, but it oi< not do so It believed in local iuteres and co-ordination. The schools be len-e:l to the pcop.e, who desired ti take an active interest in them. U* /confidently hoped that co-ordinatioi would. he adopted, and each distnc be <ri\en its own authority to develo] according to its needs. Co-ordinatioi did not mean a primary section witl one governing body, and a seoondar section with another, but one authorit; elected on a parliamentary franchise embracing a wide order in winch tnei was community' of interest, and wind exercised a unifying control over ever, type of school—primary, secondary, o technical—within its district. Mr. Hennessey made it clear that tn School Committees’ Association ha< not. officially come-to any conclusioi as to the desirability or otherwise o whether the present system was th best, but they had come to the con elusion that the abolition of education boards and the centralisation of ad ministration in a Government depart ment would he a retrograde step am wa.s altogether undesirable. A larg proportion of Iscliool committeemei were against the centralisation tha had been going on for some time. lln education boards should be called upoi to resume some of their lost power The officers of the department, whih verv sympathetic and helpful, wer< tied to the political machine, and i was verv undesirable that their hands should be strengthened by a furthei curtailment of the boards’ powers. All Hennessey believed that the tendency towards standardisation of our children in the schools had nothing whatever to commend it. He believed that the aim of the’ department, the education hoards, and the committee should he to develop each child according to his nature and his needs, so as to enable him to live a useful, free,

and hapny life. An interesting discussion iollowed, during which the chairman quoted from Hansard to show that the Houstf <p Representatives in 1877 foresaw the possibility of the newly-formed Education Department by regulation gradually reducing the education hoards tc impotence. Members were then practically unanimous in their desire tc defeat such a possibility. One member. Mr. Lusk, remarked that lie hoped such modifications oi the Bill would be made to ‘-prevent our cdueationa system degenerating into a system rendering everything responsible am subservient to a central bureau. Nothing will so emasculate a system ot e<lu cation as that.”