EDUCATION REFORM.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 2065, 9 December 1919, Page 4

EDUCATION REFORM.

THE BOARD'S MANIFESTO. EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTE IN REPLY. Thwo has recently been widely circulated and pulHished in the Pros:- a manifesto frym the Education Boards’ Association, in which an endeavour is made to postpone for a lime Ihe exline! ion of those bodies. A I'ler some introductory paragraphs, t ho compilers put forward thirteen {ominous number) propositions or statements in which they attempt to show the excellences of the board system. These may most: conveniently he dealt with under the headings administration and local control, reforms, hiss of functions, teaching staff, political influence and finance. ADMINISTRATION AND LOCAL CONTROL. The paragraph of the manifesto that deals with administration shows a misunderstanding' of the educational needs and movements of the times, it assumes that centralisation is the object of reformers; but this is entirely wrong, V. hat is wanted is a national education board, or administrative council if that name is preferred, to give general direction to the system; bat the key of the situation is local administration. In point of fact, the board system embodies and exemplifies all the evils of centralisation multiplied nine times, since there are nine hoards. Every member of every school committee m the Dominion has had experience of the dif(iculty of securing attention to the business of the schools, especially those at a distance from the board’s centre. What is wanted is the power for the people of each locality to do their own business; the boards represent a clumsy and expensive incubus that represses local energy and kills local interest. It is local knowledge, local energy, am! local interest dial constitute the breath of life of an education system. Make each district responsible, under the guidance of a. national, not a parochial, education board, for dim 'educational progress of its own people, ami give the people in each districtpower to administer its affairs ia conformity with local needs and circumstances, ami the stagnation that has fallen upon our system will pass away. It is only when local interest and energy and enthusiasm are given scope and encouragement that education will assume that position in the national life that its importance demands.

BEFOKMG. “Boards have neon responsible lor many reforms," -ay Hie compilers of the manifesto —but they do not venture to name any of them. Can the compilers name a single i'efonn that has originated with the education beards? Can they, further, name a single important reform that has not been opposed by most, if not all, of the boards'.’ To (jiiote examples: Teaehcrs incorporation and Court of Appeal'Act, I’lipil-teaelier Regulations, freedom of Classification. Administration of Building Grant, Scholarship Regulations, Dominion Scale of Stalls and Salaries (on which depended flie Superannuation Act). Control of Inspectors, Grading of Teachers — were not all these opposed by most of the boards, and most of them by all the boards? It is, however, gva|Hiving to note that even education boards a.re not totally impervious to the spirit of reform, as shown hy the fact that they have officially accepted the important principles of co-ordinated control of the various sections of educational work, and of an Administrative Council of Education. It is pleasing to observe also, though death-lied repentances are proverbially unreliable, that the hoard’s conference adopted a considerable number of planks from the New Zealand Educational Institute’s scheme of reform. LOSS OF FUNCTIONS. In their introduction (he compilers of the manifesto assert that in the main the boards have done their work Aveil; and their only evidence in support of the claim is the. high reputation onr soldiers have won in the Avar. The New Zealand soldier has been made the foundation on Avliich to base a great many fantastic theories and untenable pleas, but surely none has been more fantastic or unetnable than this. But have tiie hoards, “in the main, done their work well’’? If so, how has it come about that from finite cany in the history of the system it Avas found that the hoards could not, or did not, do their Avork Aveil, and that section after section of their Avork has been taken out of their bands, in order that it might he done better? To such a length has this process gone that there is only one function of any importance remaining to them. This is the appointing of teachers, and this function the principal boards have persistently refused to perform in the manner prescribed hy the Act.

CONTROL OF TEACHING STAFF. The' compiler- would have been wise to omit from their manifesto all reference to this subject. If there is one-thing mure than another in which the board system has failed to justify itself, this is the thing. The teaching service is a national service, and must be nationally administered if the nation is to get out of it the best work of which it is capable. This docs not moan that it should become part of the Civil Service: it is a. totally different service from that, and requires different treatment. But while the system itself is inherently bad, the administration of it by the boards has been worse. The history of the teaching.service, as directed by the boards,

presents a record of inefficiency und injustice that has done more ‘than even the meagre salaries to drive out of the service the more enterprising teachers who were free to go out. The .State will never get such a teaching staff as it needs until these evils are removed ami the service placed on a satisfactory basis under national control. The hoards have persistently maintained a provincial and parochial attitude, ami this has had an exceedingly detrimental effect on the service. POLITICAL INFLUENCE. The manifesto alludes to the danger of the intervention of political influence. The actual fact is that political influence has been one of the chief bugbears of the system. Membership of an education board has always been a favourite sideline of politicians. The hoards have been much more serviceable to politicians than to education, and as a result the political members of boards have in most eases regarded the hoard’s business more from the political than the educational standpoint. A similar propensity led to. the exclusion of M.’sP. from land hoards and other State boards, and it would be an»advnutage if (lie same rule applied to education boards. Owing to the indirect method of election of board members, and llieir consequent freedom from democratic control, there is especial opportunity for the intrusion of political interest, and education has suffered in consequence. REFORM. The manifesto says “the only difficulty . . . was lack of sufficient

monetary provision by the Central Department.” This is putting the hoot on the wrong fool. The money has to be supplied by Parliament, and as (he boards were the administering bodies in education it was for them to give. Parliament and people a lead, and point on! what 'flight to be provided. Have they ever done tins? There has been innumerable members of boards in Parliament; how many of them have, in Parliamen! or at the hoard’s table, taken up an altitude in favour of reform and progress in national education.’ Reform has bad to be forced upon them from without: it has never in any important instance eman.red from within, it is the people who will have to demand from Parliament ilia I education lie adequately endowed. An important consideration is the expcnsivenes.s of the board system. On the whole, the hoards lane become merely agents for distributing Government money: and nearly a (bird of the funds at their discretionary disposal are eaten up in expenses of adn'inislroLon.

THE REMEDY. ISince (lie board system has thus completely failed to meed the needs of lim time, what i- to lake its place ’ The boards themselves, at their conference, agreed on lie first slop, (lie institution of an administrative council of education, which is a National Board of Education under another name. The next slop is plainly the giving of power to the local authority, eommilice, m' whatever it may lie, to administer ’.lie educational affairs of the locality in accordance with local needs, s-.i iliai the people themselves may have opportunity to show tlicit’ lalere.-l. m (he work of 1 licit' own schools, and (bus infuse into the sy-.lem I hat vitality and vigour which (he present cumbersome, expensive, and oyl-of-dato machinery so effectually cutslies. The more the subject is studied Ihe more evident becomes the conclusion that the solution of the question is to be found in the proposal of the New Zealand Educational Institute for a national board to direct, and local education authorities to administer.