SYSTEMS OF EDUCATION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19203, 20 June 1924, Page 8

SYSTEMS OF EDUCATION.

ADDRESS BY INSPECTOR BUCKLE. SOME INTERESTING PARTICULARS. Inspector G. W. Buckle, M.A., H.M T., who is in Now Zealand on exchange, deli verexl a brief address to the members of the Education Board yesterday morning. Ho said that in England the organisation of tho country schools was very like what it was in the dominion. The country school was a single school generally, with one head master, organised very nidcli as their schools were in the dominion. In England it was compulsory to send children to school at the age of five. In New Zealand the age was seven. In tho town schools in England there had long been a tendency to separate what they called the primer and the infant classes. This comprised a period of about three years of school life. The justification for treating them separately was that in, England the theory was to teach tho children to learn and to prepare them for tho education imparled in tho upper classes above the infant school. Tho tendency for some years before the war was to build the boys and girls’ schools separately, but there were now signs of a change. In England there was not the demand or the supply as regards secondary school education on the same generous scale they had in tho dominion. The secondary school education in England was available for a fraction only of the children, and those who received the benefit of the free secondary education got it as a result of strenuous competition, and they also secured it at an earlier age than was the case in tho secondary schools in the dominion. Their children went to these secondary schools at the ago of 12. They tried for a longer school life before the children sat tor their matriculation or post-malnculation work. In England they bad to face the question of exactly what form the education should take from the ages of 12 to 14, and they were attempting to face it very largely by what they called central schools. These were similar to the junior high school of the dominion. These schools were to provide a more purposeful education for children from tho age of 12 who were not going in for a full-time secondary education leading to matriculation. The whole scheme aimed at providing some definite point during the last two years of school life. The charge against the old scheme was that it did not. give practical instruction that would equip the child for work, in tho central schools the child was encouraged to specialise in tho kind of work in which he showed most promise. Really in England they were getting towards three stages of primary education —the infant (from five years to eight or nine years), where tho children were taught fo adapt themselves to their new conditions; in the next (from nine to 12 years) they were taught to reason and, to think and talk fairly logically, but no great knowledge was expected of them until, the course was completed; and then, during the last stage, the object was (o utilise the faculties of absorption and acquirement according to the probable length of the child’s term in - the school and his natural abilities. Some of them went on past, the ago of 14 years, and 'were taken close to the matriculation standard.

In answer to questions, Mr Buckle said that the primary education in England was controlled by the county councils, working through education committees. There were various national scales for tho payment of teachers. Central schools were being carried on in tho country districts to a certain extent. So far as post-primary education in the country was concerned, Mr Buckle said he was very much taken with the district high school system of the dominion. They had nothing quite like that in England. They did not pay for children’s books in England. If a child secured the right to free education it wont to the nearest town, and (hen it was given a boarding allowance and free books. There was less home-work on the whole in England than in the dominion. Their school day, however, was half an hour longer m England. They could not compel a child which lived three miles away from a school to attend tho school.

Teachers were not Stale employees in England, and they did not work under a grading system. The infant room was not controlled by ihe head master. It wag controlled by tho mistress..

On the motion f.-.pf, Mr ; A H. Wilkinson Mr Buckle wag accorded a hearty' vote of thanks for his address.