BY POST

Northern Advocate, 19 April 1933, Page 7

BY POST

NOVEL EDUCATION,

NEW SOUTH WALES SYSTEM

SYDNEY, April 15,

The largest school in New South Wales today is one in which the teacher never sees his pupils, nor the children their classmates —the Education Department’s Correspondence School. From modest beginnings in 1916, when it was founded as something new in education systems by Mr S. H. Smith, who later became Director of Education, it has grown to one of the most important of the Department’s activities. In 1916 one teacher was sending out weekly postal instructions to a few young scholars in the far outback. Today 126 teachers are required to cope with the task of instructing 5,229 students .

The fact that there have been 850 enrolments this year speaks for the pro gress that has been made. Gone are the days when children rode or walked many miles to the schools. Today, in New South Wales, no home is too remote for the aid of the postal teacher. When the idea was first mooted critics feared that it would never be a success. Contact between teacher and pupil, they held, was essential for the child to be given knowledge in a form its untutored mind could assimilate. Results, however, have exceeded expectations of those who have favoured the scheme. While comparisons are difficult, it is found that the postal student keeps well up with the ordinary school student. Primary examinations prove this, and the . accomplishments of postal scholars who pass on to the secondary schools give further confirmation.

The system is simple. Bach correspondence pupil is provided with three exercise books, and there is a continuity of study. One book can be with the teacher for correction, another in the post with fresh lessons, and the third with the child. Text books,, printed leaflets, and supplementary typewritten sheets, explain the lessons in a clear and concise manner, so that the child, or, at any rate, the parent who is assisting, can readily understand. Every child has an index card, showing progress, while a system of rotary colours reveals whether he is retarded, up to the standard, or advanced. At present the correspondence school is concerned mainly with primary instruction. Having completed this most of the children are of an age when they can travel or board near a school. Where necessary the courses are extended. To be eligible to join the school a child must live three miles from one of the State schools, and the system has been so perfected that apparent lack of competition does not lead to retarded progress. Teachers working under the postal system declare that they often get to know their pupils bettor than they do the members of the large classes they instruct personally in the big schools. Personal letters between the scholars and the teachers are encouraged, and the children are invited to visit their “schoolroom” should they come to Sydney for a holiday.