EDUCATION BOARDS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 223, 16 August 1930, Page 9

EDUCATION BOARDS.

SUGGESTED REFORMS. A NATIONAL SCHEME. The report of the Parliamentary Recess Committee on Education was laid on the table of the House of Representatives yesterday. It contains numerous far-reaching recommendations, and in view of the criticism that has been launched by education boards, it is interesting to note the recommendations of the Committee in respect of these boards. While not committing itself to any definite recommendation on the matter, tire committee has suggested that the boards should be based upon the thoroughly democratic principle of the direct representation of the interests concerned, including the interests of the electors as a whole. There will be neither difficulty nor any great expense in thus providing for the direct representation of the people on the boards if the boundaries of the. education districts are so arranged that each district comprises an aggregation of complete electoral area units. As regards the representation of local governing bodies, it is suggested that this might be carried out in the same manner as the present representation for school committees, the individual members of which are in effect constituted an electoral college for this purpose. The teachers will have their own machinery _ for the election of their representatives within each district. _ With regard to the special interests included under the head of agricultural and pastoral associations,, and employers’ and employees’ associations it is suggested that these should be formally appointed by the Governor in Council, not as Government nominees, but. definitely, upon recommendations by the associations concerned. Thus the boards should, in the opinion of the committee, be thoroughly representative of and sensitive to all shades of public opinion within each area, and consequently ideally qualified to undertake tho important duties entrusted to them. SCOPE OF THE BOARDS. It will be the principal duty of each education hoard to see that the benefit of this truly national scheme is available in its entirety to the remotest child within its area of authority upon terms as nearly equal to those of urban districts as can possibly be secured. To .assist in this great objective each board will be provided with a carefully balanced staff of experts under the supervision of its own chief executive officer, the Superintendent of Education. These will include specialist inspectors or supervisors of schools, to use the modern term —a name, by the way, thoroughly significant of the changed spirit by which the new movement in' education is inspired in sufficient number to enable all types of schools to fce adequately supervised, from the most remote sole teacher elementary school to the senior composite high, technical, or agricultural high school situated in the administrative centre of the district. It will be the duty of the board, for example, through this staff, to see that children out of reach of the regular schools, or unable to attend through physical disability, are brought into touch with the correspondence school in Wellington, the splendid work of which the committee commends to the notice of all whose children are so circumstanced. This school is now undertaking secondary as well qs primary work, and there seems to be no reason why, when the State is able to extend the range of its educational activities to the important field of adult as welUas adolescent education, it should not do so. HIGHER EDUCATION. It will also be the duty of the boards to • see that the belief its of the national provision for higher education are shared by the young people of their districts. To this end the committee has recommended that the administration of the bursary fund should be entrusted to these bodies in conjunction with the superintendents of the several districts. The committee expressed its confident hope that with the change-over to the new organisation there will be left behind all those unfortunate misunderstandings which have in the past marred the relations of the boards and the department, and which have made unnecessarily difficult the very necessary, work of the district senior inspector of schools. Under the new management the superintendents of education will be in many respects more closely identified with the boards than with the department, and the committee hopes and believes that the result will be entirely satisfactory to the new boards that are to be set up. One of the most important functions of the boards will bo the general organisation of the educational pyramid within each district by means of the progressive consolidation of schools and classes from the small remote elementary schools right through to its apex —the senior high, technical, and agricultural high schools in the main population centres. The determination of centres of consolidation, of modes of conveyance, and the need for the provision of hostels, and the establishment of agricultural high schools will require their careful consideration, as will also the whole question of the development of agricultural education under the new school curricula throughout, the district. Additional extracts from the Committee’s report will be published in Monday’s “Standard.”