FUTILE CONFERENCE.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXII, Issue 4740, 23 August 1902, Page 4

FUTILE CONFERENCE.

With the sitting of the Educational Conference in Wellington questions affecting the administration of education throughout the country have again been brought prominently under public notice. v In their discussions, the delegates, wo regret to say, did not justify their coming together, and their deliberations and resolutions have not, on the whole, forwarded the cause of education. Ip some respects the conference was an utter failure, and those who advocated its being held now regret the action they took in its initiation. Members of Education Boards who came to Wellington with a sincere desire to assist the department, as far as in them lay, to adjust certain differences, have returned to their homes disgusted with the whole proceedings. First of all, there was no order paper drawn up. for their guidance, and no attempt was made to conduct the conference in a business-like way. Some delegates failed to remember that they were representatives of education, and their speech was frequently slangy and disrespectful. When one delegate referred to his fellow as “a jawer,” and told another that “ he did not know what he was talking about,” it cannot be thought that the conference was conducted as it should have been, or that it reflected either the spirit or policy of Education Boards generally. If it did, then there is reason for the contention that Education Boards as at present constituted aro somewhat anomalous,

and any system of reform instituted must take cognisance of the question either of their abolition or amendment. The failure of the conference is due, it is alleged, to the presence of aggressive and over-hearing politicians, who are charged witli using their positions to further their political ends. There is an element of truth in this allegation, but 1 it is difficult to determine how far this factor militated against any good tbo conference might have accomplished. When some members of the conference waited upon the Minister for Education, to place recommendations before him, it was patent that the resolutions were come to hastily, and without that discussion which is educative and enlightening. The Minister, traversing tbo resolution that high schools should bo placed under the control of Education Boards, said this would involve a change that should not be lightly undertaken. Mr J. R. Blair declared that the conference was unanimous upon this alteration, although he could not account for the demand. Had those favourable to this extension of tho powers of Education Boards been allowed to explain their reasons for moving this resolution, and not been deterred by one of their number being dubbed “ a jawor,” the chairman of tho conference would have not had to confess his ignorance ou this point. Boards generally desire more power, because they fear that, were tho functions of. tho local school committees enlarged, or the administration of education entrusted to representatives of borough and county councils, with the addition of four or five members elected ou a popular franchise, their occupation would bo gone. If, therefore, the hoards can enlarge their powers, they hope to render their continuance essential. That, as a whole, they have not conducted their affairs with marked success is apparent from the way in which their finances have been muddled. It is notorious, too, that at least one board, finding itself in financial distress, reduced its teachers’ salaries in order to square its bank account. Thus teachers were made to pay for the financial bungling of tho board referred to. But tho boards feel severely chagrined in that tho payment of teachers is practically taken out of their hands. At all events, teachers’ salaries cannot now he manipulated by boards, since they are fixed by tihe established colonial scale.

That boards have been deprived of much of their power over teachers, through having to conform to the colonial scale of salaries, is the cause of considerable dissatisfaction among them, and the conference demanded by resolution an increase in capitation allowances and the amount allotted for general purposes. The conference wanted, in fact, to divert to incidental purposes a sura of money which the Royal Commission recommended should be paid to teachers, and which the Government under the Teachers’ Classification Act of last year has given effect to. But it may be contended that the boards have less money in their hands than formerly for general purposes. There are no grounds for such a contention. Under the old scale of capitation allowance to boards, which was fixed at £3 15s, the general expenses of these bodies was discovered by the Commissioners to amount to £62,153, that being the average for the years 1898-99 and 1900. Now, the payments by the department to boards under the first scale at present in operation exceed £66,000 per annum, so that as far as general expenses are concerned the boards are better off than formerly. Under the second scale, it was proposed to give a capitation allowance equal to £4 2s 6d—an extra half-crown—-which would have ra'sed the total vote by £14,000 for the whole colony. This would have given £2950 to boards and £11,050 to teachers’ salaries; but what Mr Pirani induced the conference to demand was that the boards should receive ‘the whole of the extra half-crown to play with, and that the teachers should obtain no advantage at all.

The school committees meanwhile complain that the boards, unable to touch teachers’ salaries, are now curtailing their allowances; and friction is arising not only between these bodies on this point, but also on the embittered question of appointing teachers. The whole of our education system calls for reform, and, it appears to us that the Education Boards’ Conference has attempted to retard reform, while at the same time its conduct has emphasised the necessity for it. Desirable as free secondary education may be to those who hare proved their fitness for it at Iho primary schools, the proposal made by the conference but touches the fringe of the education question. Radical reforms are necessary, and public opinion is gradually tending in the direction of favouring the abolition of boards, enlarging the powers of school committees, or throwing the conduct of schools on local bodies, freeing the teaching profession from that sycophancy which members of boards have exacted, and elevating teachers into the position of Civil servants. The hour may not have come for effecting reforms in our education system as here indicated, but it is coming, and, we trust, the man with it.