"MUDDLED SYSTEM”

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 200, 24 July 1937, Page 10

"MUDDLED SYSTEM”

DOMINION EDUCATION. PROFESSOR’S ADVICE. WELLINGTON, July 23. Vigorous criticism of New Zealand’s education system was made by Dr. William Boyd, head of the department of education in the University of Glasgow, in an address to ttye final meeting of the New Education Fellowship conference, at the Town Hall, Wellington to-night. Dr. Boyd declared that the system of grading teachers was at the very heart of all the evils of the primary school system, and that, until it was abolished, the schools would be open to all the forces that made for mediocrity. Visits to about a dozen schools ill the North Island had confirmed his previous opinion and what he had been told—that the teaching was competent, but undistinguished. The children on the whole had left a pleasing impression, hut there was not enough brightness, not enough of “the devil.” The blackboard writing of the teachers was “ horribly good” ; it was the writing of teachers who were always thinking of the taskmaster, who were obsessed by the petty, empty things of the educational system, rather than by its essentials. Tne school walls were decorated with posters done by the children, and he guessed that they were “goods put in the sliop window for the inspector.” This was later confirmed by a teacher. Dr. Boyd said that the further education advanced the less need there was for constant supervision of schools and teachers from above. He deplored the demoralising influence of the system on the teachers, who were, he said, continually thinking of how to improve their grading and get a better position. The profession called for whole-hearted devotion, and a teacher’s heart could not be in his job if he was always thinking of his salary. Dr. Boyd advocated the decentralisa tion of the system by the creation of district boards, a new system of appointments that would ensure that no undue influences were brought to bear, and the introduction of a salary scale without any grading. ’The speaker went on to criticise the “jumbled” secondary school system ; the high schools were too theoretical and the technical schools too practical, he saijl. The break between primary and secondary school came at about the age of 14 years, whereas almost the whole of the rest of the world was agreed that the time for the break was at 12 years,, the opening of the adolescent 3tage of life. Dr. Boyd expressed the hope that as soon as possible the school leaving age would be extended to 15 years, which would make it possible for evei-y child to have a post-primary course, with either a cultural or vocational bias. The university, lie said, was an unhappy institute and was in wrong relation to the schools; he urged the scrapping of the matriculation examination. The two-year course for the training of teachers was inadequate, Dr. Boyd said. The training of teachers should be as serious and fundamental and 1 almost as extensive as a doctor’s. He suggested a five-year course, leading up to a Degree of Education. Tins would mean that the training colleges would have to be taken from the present control and brought under the influence of the university, but they should be left the freedom to develop.