THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE ELECTIONS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCVII, Issue 11252, 26 April 1897, Page 5

THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE ELECTIONS.

, v ' !THi/evening ' fclie ■ annual- meetings of householders for the election of School Committees will be held, and in the town districts, at any rate, there is likely to be some pretty keen competition for the rather empty honour of administering the purely local clauses of the Education .Act. It is predicted that at one or two meetings there will be heated discussions on home-work, the appointment of a truant officer, technical education, the introduction of a temperance text - hook and a variety of other matters that are of more or less interest to the public. The main business of each meeting, however, is to select the very best available committee for the direction of the ordinary affairs of the school, and it is to be hoped that this fact will not he lost sight of • in the controversies that may arise around the other questions. It is, of course, perfectly light and proper that the householders should express their .opinion upon home-work or upon any other matter involved in the national system of education, hut they must not imagine that, by passing resolutions at their annual meetings, they are likely to do much towards the solution of the more perplexing problems. As for home-work, it is one of the evils that have grown put of inspectors’ examinations, and while • teachers are officially judged solely by the rapidity with which they pass their pupils through a certain number of standards, they cannot be expected to abandon a vicious system of pressure. If parents want to secure a remedy, they should go to the root of the matter, and by securing an extension of the franchise by which committees and Boards of Education are elected, obtain a better reflection of their own views in the administration of those bodies. In the meantime, their, clear duty is to make the best possible use of the power they possess by selecting committees that will do their utmost to promote the highest interests of the children.