THE EDUCATION SYSTEM.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXIX, Issue 10675, 26 January 1911, Page 3

THE EDUCATION SYSTEM.

COMPARISON WITH NEW SOUTH WALES. (Lyttelton Times Correspondent.)' Wellington, January 25. When Mr Beeby, Minister of Education in the New South Wales Cabinet, was visiting Now Zealand recently, he took the opportunity of making some inquiry into the working of the Dominion system of education. He has now returned to Sydney, and on being interviewed there said that although New Zealand spends more per head of population than New South Wales on education, he doubted whether the results are so good. A want of uniformity in, the methods of the different "districts had impressed itself on his notice, also a tendenoy to stagnation and no wide interchange of teachers or ideas. These remarks wero brought under the notice of the Hon. G. Fowlds, Minister of Education, by a reporter to-day. The Minister has only just returned frpm his South African trip, and spent a little time in Sydney, on the way back.

"I can quito understand Mr Beeby getting his impression about want of uniformity in tne methods used in the different education districts," said .Mr Fowlds, "because of tho centralisation, system in vogue in New South Walea as compared with our system of control by the Education Boards. ' Every educationalist that I have met who knows anything about our system is surprised to find that the inspectors are servants of the Education Boards instead: of the central department. Everyone of them points to this as the greatest weakness m the educational system of New Zealand."

"However, in spite of this," declared tho Minister, "I am not sure that,we arc not getting quite as good results as in any other country. Of one thing I am quite certain, and that is that our educational system from the kindergarten to the university is better correlated than in any country I know anvtliing about. While in New South W ales I had occasion to ask a young man who was in charge of ;i steam launch the name of tho river that we were on, and when I could not understand his pronunciation and had to ask him to'spell the name he calmly confessed that he could not do it. Ido not think you could have such an experience as that in New Zealand."

The Education Department in New. South Wales has a distinct advantage over the department iii New. Zealand, Mr Fowlds went on to say, in its comparative freedom in trying new experiments. For'example, one thing ; in' which he was very much interested was a system of country camps which they have instituted over there. They, took children from the town schools in parties out to camp in Iho country, districts for two or three weeks for, the purpose of studying some particular phase of rural life and education.'"! was,told," said Mi- Fowlds, "that the department, could trace from these camps..quite a number of cases where town boys had decided to take up farming as the occupation of their life.. Such an experiment would be difficult to carry out with so many Education Boards'ana authorities as we have in New Zealand. No, generally speaking, I am very well satished with/the way our system, is working but in comparison with those of other countries." '.''■'