TECHNICAL EDUCATION

Lake County Press, Issue 978, 5 September 1901, Page 7

TECHNICAL EDUCATION

[From the Evening Star's Correspondent.] WELLINGTON, August 30. In regard to technical education, the annual report of the Minister of Education expresses the hope that, especially in the schools, the fact will not be lost sight "i that manual training should not be. taken as a subject apart from the rest of education, but that it should be co-ordinated with the other subjects of instruction, and that its introduction should have a marked influence in making the Education Boards' methods of teaching more concrete, more direct, and more natural. It is for the local controlling authorities in all parts of the colony to take up the work that it is now made possible for them to do; it is for the various public associations and corporate bodies to do their utmost to encourage those departments of the work in which they are most interested ; and it may not perhaps be too much to hope that there may be found private donors by whom, as elsewhere (more especially in Great Britain and the United States), "the endowment of technical education may be regarded as an object worthy of their generosity. The total (expenditure under the head of technical instruction, exclusive of grants for building, for the year 1900 was £2,690, made up as follows:—Capitation, £1,555 5s 3d; special grants, under Act of 1895, £400; subsidies on voluntary contributions under section 17 of the Act of 1900, £335 4s lid ; incidentals, £433 7s 6d.

Considerable stimulus has been given in the past to New Zealand students by the examinations held on behalf of the Science and Art Department (now the Board of Education), London, and of the City and Guilds of London Institute. It is worthy of consideration, however, whether the time is not approaching when some of these sxminations should be conducted by the New Zealand Department itself. The delay tint is almost inevitably associated with examinations conducted on the other side of the world would be avoided if at least the more elementary subjects or branches were dealt with entirely in the colony.