THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, JUNE 15, 1926. DOES EDUCATION PAY?

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19816, 15 June 1926, Page 6

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, JUNE 15, 1926. DOES EDUCATION PAY?

The Minister of Education reiterated in Dunedin last week his previous insistence on the economic aspect of education. A few days earlier he had, at Wellington, pointed out that the cost of education had risen from 12s per head in the ’eighties to £3 per head to-day. “It was,” he said, “no use complaining, but people were beginning to ask whether the system would stand the strain of the growing demands upon it.” The question is one which a Minister rightly asks. First of all, in the attempt to answer it, consideration mud be given to the relative values of the figures. Thus, 12s in 1880 would represent £1 or, perhaps, 2os in the present year. Hence the expense is not five times as much per head of population, but less than three times as much. Then, New Zealand is growing and developing, and expenses will naturally increase in the total sum. On a general survey, there is only one answer to the onestion, does education pay in New Zealand? Where shall we look for a more contented, prosperous, better-behaved, better-informed community? It is hard to assess profit and loss where quantities are so impalpable as in things mental. Sal onej

financial aspect is plain—the credit of the people abroad. The great success of the recent New Zealand loan is ascribable to the credit of the Government of this country. The Government acquires credit in proportion to the quality of its citizens, as well as of its resources. The quality of its citizens is closely associated with the amount spent on education. Further, in 1880, out of every 10,000 people in this country' 16.48 were in gaol; in 1924, the proportion had sunk to 9.22. Scotland is not naturally an opulent country. Its people, however, exercise an influence in the world disproportionate to their numbers, particularly in engineering, finance, and theology, because they have believed that education pays. In 1922-23 there were 31,079 full-time university students in England, and 11,170 in Scotland. On a population basis, England should have had nearly 80,000 as compared with Scotland ; or to put it otherwise, there are five university students in Scotland for every two in England, counted on a percentage basis. Scotsmen, as Lord Haldane recently said, do not think they are ruined by expenditure on education. Of course, there are profits than no one can foretell. A good science laboratory and teacher in a country town may mean, twenty years later, an invention or discovery worth millions of pounds to agriculturists, pastoralists, or manufacturers. At the same time, expenditure must be carefully watched, particularly in a country that looks so much to the State for educational provision. In 1922, New Zealand spent £2 9s 9d per head of population, New South Wales £1 14s Od, and Victoria £1 7s Id. In 1923-24. the cost in London was £1 7s Sd. In 1920-21, England spent £2 Is Bd, Scotland £2 5s Bd, and the State of New York £6 per head. New Zealand thus spends more public money than any of the Australian States on education. But figures are misleading. The Director of Education, Mr Caughley, on his return recently from Australia, drew attention to the fact that there secondary education was largely non-Govermnental—that is, churches and private individuals took a huge burden off the State and maintained schools which, for efficiency, are generally of a very high order. This year, also, the Council of Education in Victoria (not the Education Department) is offering what are called “reversed Rhodes Scholarships” to British school boys. These six scholarships are to be tenable at non-Government schools in Victoria, and are worth £2OO a year for two years. Has New Zealand done too much through the State? And should more encouragement be given to nonGovernment schools? If such schools are to exist, it is to the interest of all that they should be kept at a maximum of efficiency. Such schools have, from very early days, been an integral part of the educational system of England. In New Zealand these schools suffer in personnel of staff owing to the superannuation of teachers in Government schools. The same thing has been operating in England. There has, however, just been issued from the Education Board in London an offer of recognition of teachers in non-govern-ment schools for superannuation purposes. No doubt this offer will be accepted, and private enterprise will thus be kept alive. Some such scheme is possible for New Zealand. We might have then more and better nonGovernmental schools, keeping alive the spirit of self-help and lessening the cost to the taxpayer. The more children there are in these schools, the fewer the teachers who will have to be paid by the State. To say that all such schools are class schools is not a vital objection. If all education were to be compulsorily Governmental, then we should produce a uniform and official type of citizen, looking always to headquarters for instructions. Australia, like the Old Country, has produced many of her ablest mer. through non-Gover.iraental schools, and Australia can hardly be regarded as a country given to fostering class distinctions. Last year, when Sir Robert Stout animadverted ftpou the rising cost of education in this country, Sir James Parr, then the Minister of Education, said that “almost all the increase in the past ten years was for teachers’ salaries and for more and better school buildings, in the effort to make up the leeway due to a ‘skinflint’ policy for a quarter of a century.’ The people of New Zealand desire education and think it pays. At the same time they wish strict vigilance over expenditure. For instance, while the Junior High School may be approved as desirable, the people will support the Government and its Minister only in a policy of cautious expenditure. Educationists, who are so often idealists—•md rightly so—cannot expect to have all their schemes financed at once. Education pays, but like every good business—and it is a business—it requires prudent management.