EDUCATIONAL REFORM.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXVII, Issue LXXVII, 4 January 1918, Page 5

EDUCATIONAL REFORM.

NEW ZEALAND INSTITUTE'S

VIEWS

The executive of ihe New Zealand Educational Institute thus expresses itself upon the chief preliminaries necessary to sound educational reform:

"As preliminaries to the comprehensive educational reform that national welfare demands there are evident, among others, two principal desiderata. The first of these is an awakening of the general public not only to the needs of the educational situation, but to the possibilities that depend upon educational progress—for it is too often forgotten, especially by politicians, that money and energy invested in education is always highly reproductive in every form of national good. This awakening has already commenced, but it- needs stimulating and extending, and from it there will be brought to the assistance of education an active and enlightened local interest that has in the past been most noticeably lacking. An education system can do its work to the fullest effect only when, directed and stimulated by a national education board, it calls out and employs the energy and . intelligence of the people of each district in aiding and extending the work of the schools of the district. The best way to do this is probably to make use of the existing local governing bodies —county councils, borough councils and so on — to give them certain definite portions of the education system to administer and develop", to give them power to call to their counsel by "'co-optation' any persons whose advice and assistance would be valuable, and by a system of subsidies to encourage them to raise local funds for this greatest of all local benefits.

* There are parts of the work of education that could be very greatly helped by local enthusiasm directed in this way. Physical development, art and craft work, young people's social organisations, as well as secondary and technical schools as generally understood all offer themselves as scope for local interest and energy; and they so lend themselves to organisation and co-ordination that the maximum of efficiency may very well be anticipated. With efficiency there will also be secured economy, for when the various phases of the work are controlled by the one authority the best use can be made of teaching power and equipment.

"The mention of teaching power brings us to the. second of the two preliminary essentials already referred to —the provision of a vastly improved teaching staff, and the more effective use of the staff when secured. More teachers are needed, a better quality o; recruits is needed, adequate training of these recruits is needed, and the conditions of schools and classes must be so improved as to allow the teachers, when trained, to carry on the work of education with some regard to the lessons that the educational and medical sciences have taught us. Last year 29 per cent —nearly one-third—of tne teachers in primary schools were without any form of certificate, and in secondary and technical schools a very 'urge proportion of tlie teachers are - ntrained. And this stair is employed n such a way as to giro far from tho vaximnm of effectiveness in results, ni largo schools there are classes numbering up to seventy ami eighty pupils; ar.d in some century districts there are groups of perhaps four or five schools containing in the aggregate not mere pupils than one of these large classes. Why are these small schools not consolidated into one lnrtcer, efficient school, and tho teaehei-s thus liberated used to reduce the unwieldy legiments in the others? The time is ripe for taking this matter resolutely in hand. More and better recruit's must bo found for the teaching service, nnd if money is required to do it, the money must be found.

"Let it bo repeated, the life of the nation depends on the education of its people, and it is no reply to say that the country cannot afford it. In very truth the country cannot afford not to afford it. To refuse to provide the means of mental, moral, and physical health and growth, which is whafeducation means, is to open the door for the entry of disease and decay."