CHANGES IN EDUCATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20221, 4 April 1929, Page 10

CHANGES IN EDUCATION.

MORE PRACTICAL TEACHING.

DEVELOPING CHILD'S APTITUDE

BIAS TOWARD AGRICULTURE. [BY TELEGRAPH.— riIESS ASSOCIATION.] NELSON, Wednesday. Directions in which the education system of New Zealand could be improved were suggested by the llou. H. Atmore, Minister of Education, in an address here to-day. The Minister visited various Nelson schools to-day and was accorded a very enthusiastic welcome. Tho Minister said it was necessary that the education system should change with the changing conditions of daily life, and that had not* been sufficiently realised in the past. A professor in the South had said rather foolishly that the present system was an attempt to teach trades in the schools. Education had to deal with practical things in order to fit tho children for the practical life they would enter into when they left school. With this in view a change would shortly be brought about' in post-primary education. No boy or girl should worry because he or she was not head of a class. . There was bound to be something they could do specially well. One of the new aims in (he education system was to discover each child's special aptitude and get him into the trade or calling for which his particular ability fitted him. Academic ideas in education had persisted too long; the system had been brought from England in the days when only wealthy people's sons and daughters, who would not have to earn their living, were educated. In New Zealand now 98 per cent, of the boys and girls had to earn their own living. Everyone interested in education wanted the system in New Zealand to be better than that anywhere else. Boys and girls from New Zealand schools must not go out at a disadvantage with tlioso who had been educated in other parts of the world. It had been said that primary education involved concentration on the child and secondary education concentration on the subject. "We want concentration on the child all along," said Mr. Atmore. The Secretary of State for the Dominions, Mr. L. S. Amery, had said that New Zealand's education system could not be equalled anywhere else in the world, but they wanted to improve it still further.

Tho Minister said the fault he had to find with the system was that it was not sufficiently practical. In a country such as New Zealand, where 95 per cent, of the wealth was derived from the land, the education system should have an agricultural bias. It should be in closer relation to the facts boys and girls would have to face in after life. The Minister said lie hoped that in the near future he would be able to bring about a reduction of numbers in the various school classes so that teachers would be able to get to know each boy and girl and so pay attention to each pupil's, individual requirements.