OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19801, 28 May 1926, Page 10

OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM.

EXPERTS PERTURBED. SELF-COMPLACENT TEACHERS. (Peb United Press Association.) WELLINGTON, May 27. Mr W. A. Armour (president 'of the Secondary Schools’ Association), in an address at the association’s conference, made some pointed references to what he termed the self-complacency into which teachers in New Zealand had deluded themselves. In stead of being, as they had flattered themselves, among the leaders of education in the world, the profession in the Dominion was really lagging behind. “We have come to see that wo are far from knowing all that is to be known about education. The time is here for well-planned investigations into our system as it exists and as it ought to be. We are beginning to realise we are behind Britain in many respects.” They had been told to embark on expert mentation, but such a course was hampered by the many requirements of the existing curriculum and the necessity for devoting a large amount of attention to subjects appertaining to various examinations. Experimentation to-day was striving to explore the aptitudes and the capacities of our young people in a way never attempted before. By assisting a boy or girl to develop his or her capabilities along the best lines much excellent work was being done in the secondary schools. Already teaching was more live. The school was capturing the parent and impressing the employer, who had regarded higher school education as too bookish. If it had been bookish it was largely the fault of the employer, who was the principal taxpayer- “Let us combine to bring about conditions giving greater liberty in oui schools for development along lines which ■would not be narrowed unduly by the incubus of rather unsuitable examination pre scriptions.” Dr Marsden (Assistant Director o£ Education) agreed that he, like other educational authorities, was somewhat at a loss to know just where education in New Zealand was drifting. He believed the storm Centre was the curriculum, which should change with the advanced requirements ot education, and should alter also with the amendments of the whole system. There was a tendency to lag behind the actual requirements. “It is difficult to say what the aim of our education is, for there is a different aim for every child.” With the advent of the junior High schools’ requirements the curriculum would again be altered. What they needed was the introduction of reason into the curriculum of the high schools.