PRIMARY SCHOOLS

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XX, Issue 149, 13 June 1930, Page 8

PRIMARY SCHOOLS

PROGRESS TOO SLOW IN LOWER CLASSES. DIRECTOR FORECASTS A CHANGE. Wellington, June 12. The view that the progress in the lower classes in New Zealand primary schools was much too leisurely was put forward by Mr T. B. Strong, Director of Education, in an address to the Council of Education to-day. In Australia, he said, the syllabus was much more comprehensive than ours. He thought, however, that considerable advance had been made in New Zealand in the direction of giving primary school teachers great liberty in making instruction more practical, less formal, and giving due emphasis to the cultural side.

In one aspect, however, it failed. He had been led to that conclusion because his observations in Australia had confirmed the opinion that he had held for some years. It was probably one of the most important results of his visit abroad. The primary school syllabus appeared to fail because it did not provide rapid enough advance from stage to stage. While some classes had a reasonable amount of work, to do, others were almost marking time for some time during the school year. The point, he said, was a debatable one. Progress in the lower classes in NewZealand schools was much too leisurely. Some knew it, he said, as the view he bad brought forward before and which had met with considerable opposition. His own efforts to put more work on to the lower classes and so make room for great advance .n the higher classes reaching a higher standard of attainment in Standard VI had been opposed, and he had had to give way.

Comparing the syllabus of to-day with the syllabus of the past, he always noted a tendency to take something out rather than to put something in. He knew there was the popular opinion that the syllabus was overcrowded. He did not think it was overcrowded, and he was led to the conclusion that more could be done, particularly in the lower part of the school. It was a very serious matter and one that affected all branches of education in New Zealand from the primarv to the university, and he thought that it demanded very close investigation. He proposed next week when all the inspectors of the Dominion met in conference to take up the matter very seriously with them. He was more convinced from his visit to Australia that there was some ground for the criticjsm he had made. It had. become the fashion with some educationists in New- Zealand to decry without ceasing our education system. He said “One of these at a recent meeting in Wellington is reported as saying? ‘We can pay too much for a system of education" that is out of date such as ours is, as well as unsuited to the need of New Zealand.’ Professor Condliffe in his recently published book. ‘New Zealand in the Making,’ is so ignorant of the New Zealand education system as to sav that there has been no change in our schools since 1871. Statements like these are so absurd as to carry their own refutation. I am not going to suggest that the New Zealand education system cannot be improved and if the people of New Zealand will provide the money they can have the improvements.”