REFORM IN EDUCATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20271, 3 June 1929, Page 11

REFORM IN EDUCATION.

IDEALS OF .THE MINISTER,

ACADEMIC BIAS TOO STRONG.

CHANGES IN SYSTEM PLANNED. I In tho shaping of a new educational policy for the Dominion, tho Hon. 11. Atmoro, Minister of Education, is gratified at tho widespread concurrence with his view that vital changes in tho present system are necessary, a concurrence expressed recently in resolutions passed by numerous interested bodies. To his new official post the Minister, long an ardent educationist, appears to be bringing something of a reformer's zeal. Interviewed in Auckland yesterday, Mr, Atmore described as entirely wrong the system which designed first to make professional men and clerks, then tradesmen, and lastly farmers in a country which produced 95 per cent, of its wealth from the soil. He is impressed with the necessity for remodelling the system, and virtually reversing the present order by giving to tho school syllabus a strong agricultural bias, which would permeate the whole school life. 1 Part of Mr. Atmoro's scheme is to terminate tho primary school course at about the age of 11, so that the following years may bo devoted by the child to a course of study calculated to provide an equipment for adult life. Education should proceed along the lino of discovered aptitude. Individuality and initiative would be encouraged, as they could not be fully encouraged at present, and children would ,be developed to their full mental stature. At its recent conference in Wellington the New Zealand Educational Institute had agreed that tho primary course should cover ages from five to eleven, after which the secondary training should begin. "Uniformity of control" may be termed tho central feature of the new policy. Tho Minister said he had suggested to tho teachers assembled in their conferences in Wellington during the recent school vacation that they should adopt a scheme of unification of the teachers' organisations. That would iissist them in regarding the education of the child as a continuous process, and abolish the tendency of teachers to regard that process merely through the windows of their sectional teachers' organisations.

Continuance of tho use of the term "junior high school" was also deemed unwise by the Minister for a similar reason. In his judgment, it would bo better to regard the specialised post-primary course as secondary education. Thero was a danger that distinctions of title would encourage snobbishness, and there were already signs of antagonism between the ordinary secondary schools and the technical schools, a spirit that had to be eliminated before much progress could bo made. • -

The ideal of the Minister is the building up of a distinctively New Zealand system of education, unfettered by the prejudices and methods of other countries, and designed to meet the Dominion's special needs. Tho present system was too academic, in his opinion, and was not sufficiently attuned to life as a boy or girl would have to meet it.