TUTOR-ORGANISER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22988, 16 March 1938, Page 17

TUTOR-ORGANISER

WORKERS' EDUCATION

MR. E. M. HIGGINS' ARRIVAL EXPERIENCE IN TASMANIA Selected recently as tutor-orgnniser for the Workers' Educational Association in Auckland, Mr. K. M. Higgins, of Launceston, Tasmania, arrived from Sydney by the Awaten yesterday to take up his appointment. For the last two years Mr. Higgins has been tutorial class lecture; 1 for the University of Tasmania in Northern and North-western Tasmania.

Ju Workers' Kducational Association activities various Australian State Governments wore taking New Zeahmd as a model, said Mr. Higgins. That particularly applied to such services as those provided in farming districts and at public works camps, arid tho box schemu by which quantifies of literaturo and illustrative material were distributed was being copied. Mr. Higgins added that he was greatly impressed by the active support g:.vep to workers' educational activities by the New Zealand Government. Discussing the value of tho Educational Association's work, Mr. Higgins stated that; two of three men recently elected to tho Australian Senate from Tasmania had both attributed their training in public life to their long experience with the association. , One had been for nine years secretary to tho Launceston branch. In this . respect an endeavour was constantly being made to link the formal association work with training for some public activity. A tendency for interest in Workers' Educational Association classes to concentrate more and more on world affairs was a feature that had been noticeable, at least in Tasmania, during recent years, Mr. Higgins said. During!

the depression economics had been a popular subject, but both economics and psychology had now given way to the new interest. This year, for the first time in a long period, there was no economics class in Hobart.

i Mr. Higgins, who will begin his new duties immediately, is a bachelor of arts of Melbourne and Oxford Universities. Ho, has had considerable experience of Workers' Educational Association work and similar activities, particularly among trade union members, both in England and in Australia, l'or a year l>e was director of the Labour Research Bureau, Trades Hall, Sydney.