EDUCATION SYSTEM

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 193, 17 July 1939, Page 8

EDUCATION SYSTEM

FORECAST OF LEGISLATION. MESSAGE’ FROM MINISTER. “The school should be regarded as ail institution wherein every child should he enabled to develop to the highest degree all his faculties —physical, intellectual, manual niuF social. None should he allowed to leave school to feel in after years that he possessed faculties unrecognised or undeveloped. Our aim, then, is that every child should he treated as an individual, and not merely as a member of a class. .Learning and skill arc of all wealth the easiest to retain, and the most productive in application.” This was the message conveyed by Air. J. Barclay, ALP. for Alarsden, and a former resident of the Shannon district, on behalf of the Alinister of Education (Hon. P. Fraser) at the jubilee celebrations of the Shannon School on Saturday. “Wc have gone far since the days when the Shannon School was establaslied," saitl the Minister’s message, “but the road ahead is long. I can give you only a brief outline of the reforms in hand or but. recently accomplished. We are re-designing and remodelling our school buildings and our school furniture to give as far as possible open-air conditions and that freedom of movement within the school room which is so essontion for the health of the children and for the proper performance of many aspects of school work. A milk-for-schools scheme has been introduced and is functioning' most satisfactorily, while the training of an adequate supply of dental nurses iS proceeding apace. “To ensure that the educational process will he continuous, the Government has abolished the proficiency and intermedintc examinations. It has made more generous the conditions of entry to the Correspondence School and broadened its curriculum Every pupil, if he applies himself industrially, may now proceed uninterruptedly from the primer class to ’be doors of the University. “The Government has also under consideration new schemes for the grading and classification of teachers and the stalling of schools, which, it is hoped, will go far towards ensuring a better supply of teachers and greater stability of stalling for the schools. Special committees have also reported ,to mo on an improved scheme of physical education and on a comprehensive text-book and school library system. “To ensure the more harmonious and efficient working of the whole education system, legislation will he introduced this session to bring all primary and post-primary schools in the same education district under one controlling hoard. “And, finally, to satisfy the increasing demand of the adult community for an intelligent understanding of the many problems of everyday life, I have recently established the Council of Adult Education, whose aim it will ho to aid and stimulate all local efforts directed to this end. “These are but a few of the most important changes that have been effected or that are contemplated. But though Governments may legislate, it is the spirit ,ind enthusiasm with which this legislation is translated into action by parents, committees and education boards that determines all subsequent progress.

“An education system, in common with many others, can never with advantage stand still : it must either grow or stagnate. Bounds cannot be set to the development of the human spirit. Each generation has problems peculiar to itself, and through education alone can we hope to reach a satisfactory solution. There will he those among you who can recall the early days in New Zealand when education was compulsory only up to Standard 4 or the age of twelve; when ability to read aiul write and perform simple arithmetical calculations was all that was considered necessary. By successive stages school life has been lengthened and the scope of school work enlarged. “But school life is still too short and the curriculum too narrow. I believe that the school has much to offer our young people long after they have reached the age of fourteen, and it is the intention of the Government to introduce legislation and to remodel the syllabus to enable this to bo done.

“I congratulate the Shannon School upon the attainment of its jubilee and T am confident all present to-day, old and young, prompted by their experience or their needs, will co-operate in establishing in this fair Dominion a system as near the ideal as it is possible to attain. May to-day’s proceedings 1« most pleasant and most successful,” the Minister concluded.