POST-PRIMARY EDUCATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18889, 11 December 1924, Page 8

POST-PRIMARY EDUCATION.

A s3-mpathetic yet critical survey of the New Zealand system of postprimaiy education has been given by the Minister for Education in announcing that it is to be inspected and reported upon by an outside expert. None of the points he mentioned was new. These were the domination of outside examinations, the preparatory course for the University being taken by very many students who did not follow it up by proceeding to the University, the tendency to spend too brief a time at a secondary school, and the rush to enter professions', to the detriment of industry and agriculture. All these things have been discussed at length, the pros and cons being carefully weighed by those actually engaged in educational work in New Zealand. Undesirable and. wastefi 1 tendencies have been freely attributed to most of them, but champions have also arisen to defend the existing system at practically every point of attack. In the circumstances a careful survey by an unprejudiced authority from another country may, as the Minister produce valuable results. In going to Australia for the man, the department has been well advised. The two countries are sufficiently far apart to ensure adequate detachment. They are reasonably akin in outlook and conditions, so that the Victorian educationist who is to make the investigation will not need to acquire an, entirely new point of view, as might have been necessary in an inspecting officer from, say, Canada, England. The result of his labours should be that New Zealand will see the postprimary system of. education as another sees it, but that other has an excellent prospect of seeing it with insight and understanding as well as with expert knowledge. The Dominion, inclines to be proud of its education system ; but no one, Minister or anybody else, imagines it to be either above, criticism or incapable of improvement. There is a good prospect therefore of useful suggestions to follow the process of inspection announced by Mr. Parr.