CONTROL OF EDUCATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21163, 21 April 1932, Page 11

CONTROL OF EDUCATION.

DECENTRALISATION URGED. RETURN TO EARLIER SYSTEM. REPRESENTATIONS BY BOARDS. Among proposals submitted to the Minister of Education by the Education Boards Conference which sat in Wellington recently is one for decentralisation in education as opposed to the centralisation advocated by the National Expenditure Commission. The conference considers that greater economies can be effected by unified local control than by direct control from Wellington. Dealing with education administration, the conference submits that it is the large central department which has become the unnecessary growth, making the system "one of the most cumbrous and costly that could be devised." The conference is of opinion that a return should be made to the system which was the basic principle when the Education Act of 1877 was passed, a system under which the department was a co-ordinating advisory and legislative body concerned mainly with questions only of general policy. Instead, the department has gradually introduced a system of administration which requires practically every function of a local board to be subservient to the department's authority. The boards have been involved in much extra clerical work in supplying a multiplicity of detailed information and in answering correspondence on trivial matters. The conference recommends a decentralisation of the system and the restoring to boards of their lost powers. With the growth of secondary and technical education, the conference recognises that too many local bodies have been established and that efficiency and economy in administration would result from a unification of control of all three branches of education by a reconstituted board representative of all interests in each education district.

It is considered that the constitution of each board could be referred, under the Minister's direction, to the existing local boards to devise a representative constitution. Failing local agreement, it should be left to the Minister to drawup a constitution for each district. OPINION OP COMMITTEES. BOARD'S WORK APPRECIATED. Several letters from school committees objecting to certain of the proposals of the National Expenditure Commission for economy in education were received by the Auckland Education Board yesterday. Many committees objected to the proposal to abolish boards and appreciation of the board's work in the past was expressed. "It is very gratifying to receive such letters," said the chairman, Mr. A. Burns.