ADMINISTERING. EDUCATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18708, 14 May 1924, Page 8

ADMINISTERING. EDUCATION.

If all that is , said 1 by many governing bodies of secondary schools be • correct, they have some cause for complaint that centralisation of control in the Education Department is excessive. It is just . possible that they are not wholly accurate. There has been growing in recent years a habit of girding;at the department. The habit is easily engendered. Human nature cannot resist joining in a hue and cry. This inborn tendency is itself prone to excesses. Some comments made by the department's critics are indicative of an emotional attitude quite out of keeping with an educational body's exaltation of intellect. These, attacks almost go the length of a demand that the department should be abolished but there must be some co-ordination ,in a national system of education. New Zealand is after all only a pocketedition of a country, and a measure of uniformity should be sought in its schools. This means a department and a director and a .series of regulations. But when that is admitted there is still room for the different local authorities and their work. As far as possible, . opportunity for initiative should be given them. A healthful . rivalry may well be encouraged among them. Complete standardisation is out of place in education, whose' ultimate task is the cultivation of individuality; and the desire to reduce administration to a rigid regularity in every detail throughout even -a small country is mistaken. Particularly is it advisable to maintain local interest in schools. It may not be possible to introduce local rating for educational purposes, but in the expenditure of funds greater latitude might be allowed than is now alleged to be customary. And in other things than finance local responsibility should be encouraged. Unless there -be preserved a vital " association between the older and the younger, generation in the matter of education, the desirable element' of continuity, essential in a country's intellectual progress, will be lost. The younger needs the stimulation and the steady- ■ ing of the older, and the older the refreshing impact of the younger. In securing this impact, the quickening of interest by giving some local control is an important factor. These things, it may be assumed, are not forgotten by either the Minister or the director: ' these administrators are not the foes of education that some vigorous condemnation* suggest them to be. In practical working, the dividing line between central and local control may be difficult to fix, and between opposing views friction has naturally arisen. But its " overcoming should not pass the wit of the parties concerned. They should get together in frank and friendly discussion amicable settlement of differences is +*>®ir clearest duty, in the interests of the cause they jointly serve.