THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS WEDNESDAY, MAY 15, 1929. A FORECAST IN EDUCATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20255, 15 May 1929, Page 12

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS WEDNESDAY, MAY 15, 1929. A FORECAST IN EDUCATION.

When the Minister of Education took pains to make it clear that he, and not any departmental officer, would decide all matters of policy, ho aroused curiosity as to what, in his judgment, required to be done. That was soon after he received his portfolio. Now at length he has told the members of the New Zealand Educational Institute, and through them tho general public, that he has a programme of reorganisation of tho education system, and part of that programme he* has divulged. In the main, what he has said keeps close to the fact that the Dominion, as yet, is mainly a country of rural industries, and his words refer favourably to the practical objective in education. He has confessed, while reiterating his determination to decide matters of policy, that he depends on the advice of teachers for the detailed application of the principles fixed in his mind; but on tho first importance of education in agriculture he is frankly independent and explicit. In his opinion, a cardinal mistake has been made by harnessing the brightest brains of young New Zealand, both in town and country, to urban occupations. This way of putting things may take too little account of the universality of the drift to the towns, a trend produced by a number of conspiring factors in this age, and may state in too downright a way the part played by the education system. Better, perhaps, would it have been to say that it has not been so much through what has been positively done, but because of what those responsible for the system have neglected to do, that this townward drift has not been stemmed and turned back, However, there is little need to quarrel with Mr. Atmore about his way of putting the fact. It is enough that there has been this prejudicial harnessing of brains to town occupations, and that the Minister is bent on giving greater prominence to agriculture in the curricula of the schools. His precise acknowledgment of the fact and his promise to have something different are both very welcome.

His opinion that the portfolios of education and agriculture should be very intimately connected—more intimately, indeed, than any other two —is very suggestive in relation to his avowal that education in New Zealand should have a strong agricultural bias. The opinion rests solidly on the present and immediately prospective development of the Dominion's productive activities and the axiom that education should be speeded to a practical goal. In these circumstances, it would be more than strange if the Department of Agriculture took no interest in the Dominion's system of education and its working. It would argue a very culpable indifference, for of vital importance to this department is the question whether the youth of New Zealand is being adequately trained for agricultural pursuits. Of course, Ministers in general bring major matters of policy to Cabinet for its endorsement, and they have casual opportunities often of individual conference ; but Mr. Atmore's opinion of the desirability of a close and regular association' of the portfolios goes further. They cannot, it is clear, be held by one Minister: either entails too much work for that to be seriously considered. The alternative is regularised conference, not only of the c Ministers but also of the permanent departmental heads. This would make for economy of effort as well as agreement about it. There has been a good deal of duplication of activity. Officers of the Department of Agriculture and of the education boards, for example, have both conducted instruction classes for farmers. The practice has varied in different districts, but the dual direction of one kind of service to the community has persisted. This sort of thing, although it points to co-ordination, has possibilities of conflict. Systematised co-operation is manifestly desirable.

In the Minister's forecast of policy appears one proposal to be examined in all its bearings before adoption, lest it should injuriously affect the very object, that of encouraging education in agriculture, which Mr. Atmore has in mind. This proposal he describes as "a unification of the local administrative bodies in the various districts." What precisely Mr. Atmore means by this is not clear, but apparently it involves bringing the various types of education in a district —say, primary, secondary and technical—under one administrative body. The Minister may have in mind the facilitating of the correlation of these types and some economising of administrative expenditure. But a danger lurks in the suggestion, a danger to the very ideal Mr. Atmore cherishes about education in agriculture. There has been, as he says, a harnessing of the brightest brains to town occupations, and in the interests of the Dominion this tendency must be reversed. Now, that harnessing betokens the strengthening attraction of secondary industries and the development of technical education accordingly. Technical college boards are, therefore, mainly composed of folk whose interests centre in such industries, to the neglect of agriculture. Yet technical education includes agriculture, and the college authorities have the responsibility of catering for this need as well as the rest. How have they treated it 1 ? As a rule, not as a matter of outstanding importance, but rather as of subsidiary and relatively negligible interest. _ There is Mr. Atmore's word about "harnessing to town occupations" to witness. "Would the creation of one adminis-

trative body, to bo given control of primary, secondary and technical education, servo the Minister's project of making education in agriculture paramount? Would such a body, representing these three activities, be likely to havo an agricultural bias? Tho proposal is fraught with risk. A preferable plan, since Mr. Atmore wants to see agricultural education fostered, would be to place it locally under an administrative body independent of the other interests and thoroughly sympathetic toward it. Before the details of his administrative policy take final shape, Mr. Atmore should weigh this risk and set himself to avert it.