NATIONAL SCHOLARSHIPS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20851, 18 April 1931, Page 10

NATIONAL SCHOLARSHIPS.

It is inevitable that the vote for education should come under review in the effort to economise in national expenditure, but the Government's proposal to abolish national scholarships is to be condemned as an unwarranted and reckless blow at a valuable part of the education system. If it be found necessary to save on this item—under £12,000 if junior and senior national scholarships only are meant, with about £3500 in addition if university national scholarships also are marked for abolition —a reduction could be made in the number awarded. That would be less exceptionable than the sweeping away of a useful incentive to children of all classes. But it is very doubtful whether the Government intends this proposal as an economy measure, as it is associated with an investing of the Minister with power to establish bursaries for secondary or higher education. This makes it an adoption of the Recess Committee's recommendation "that the funds now applied to the provision of national and university entrance scholarships be utilised for the purpose of providing maintenance bursaries to assist deserving pupils to continue their education to the higher stages," these bursaries to be granted on consideration of "individual cases," not 011 competitive examination. It is obviously wrong to put such a proposal, so conditioned, in a Finance Bill; it makes a drastic change in policy, without indicating any variation in amount of expenditure, and should be'left until the system is reviewed on its educational merits. As to those, the suggested change would be open to grave abuse ; bursary holders entering secondary schools would be under suspicion of favouritism or regarded as paupers ; instead of winning honour for the schools from which they have come and creating an enthusiasm and esprit de corps in the secondary schools they enter, they would be remembered as merely fortunate and received as ugly ducklings. They might turn out to be swans, and they might not, whereas the competitive examination gives all the brood an opportunity to prove their individual worth. Warning should be taken, as the Auckland Professorial Board has urged, from the experience of Edinburgh, where a nomination bursary system has so failed to select the right type of student that an extension of the examination method of selection has been recommended by a statutory commission. To dispense education with partiality and a ladle is not half so good as to encourage mental striving for the honours and emoluments to be won in a fair field.