PRIMARY EDUCATION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19970, 11 December 1926, Page 10

PRIMARY EDUCATION.

REVISION OF SYLLABUS. MEETING OF COMMITTEE. ADDRESS BY MINISTER. (Special to Daily Times.) WELLINGTON, December 10. Some of the problems of primary education, which he considers require careful consideration in the revision of the school syllabus work outlined by the Minister oi Education (Hon R. A. Wright) yesterday in addressing the inaugural metting of the committee appointed to inquire into and report upon the present syllabus. At the outset the Minister stressed the importance and difficulty of the task the committee was confronted with, and assured the members that their find! ■ would be awaited with much interest, not only by the Government and the department, but also by the parents and pupils. He thought it would be generally admitted that the time was ripe for a revision of primary school syllabus. There had been a very great deal of criticism of the present system both by non-experts and by men ol intelligence. It was said that the young people leaving school to-day were not as valuable to the employer of labour as they were 25 years ago. Mr Wright said he wias not endorse A that view. The statement might noi uj worth anything at all, but the men who took that view were in a position to form an opinion. Anything that could be done to trv to provide a syllabus‘laying the foundation for an education, suitable not only for higher attainments, but also bear inp in mind the most important fact that 40 per cent, of the pupils did not go past the primary schools, would be very valuable. Speaking as a layman, ho thought the number of pupils who did not go beyond the proficiency certificate must be borne in mind in the framing of any syllabus. It had been contended that if improvements were made in the secondary schools more pupils would be induced to attend, and others supported the idea of the junior high school. The real difficulty was an economic one. The plain unvarnished truth was that a great mass of men in New Zealand received less than £5 per week in wages, and anyone living in the cities knew that that did not go very far with a married man and a family. The educational authorities had nothing to do with that, but the fact must be faced that when a child passed from the primary school the mother and father felt they could not afford to allow it to go any further in its education, and that the cifild must go out and bring something in to the family exchequer. Mr Wright made it clear that he did net wish to appear to be dictating to the committee. He was simply laying down suggested lines for them to work upon. Their work would be absolutely clear and unfettered. There- was a general consensus of opinion, he continued, that a revision of the examination system was mstifield, and that improvements should ba made. He quite saw the difficulty of fram ing a syllabus when one had regard fM the varving intelligence of the pupils, there was' the brilliant pupil, the pupil of average intelligence, and then there was the retardate, and he did not see how all could be provided for in the syllabus. There was already a system of partial accrediting, so that the smart child could pass on instead of marking time with the other children. It was - manifestly unfair that the progress of the smart child should be hindered through his having to wait for others who naturally made the paeo. , He was somewhat disturbed at the increasing number of retardates m the schools. and he suggested that, perhaps, the system already in practice might be improved upon. The Minister suggested to the committee that it should submit its report before the end of March next. In 1928 the department hoped to produce an absolutely new list of school books, and if the report were completed by the time he suggested—he did not wish them to hasten the work unnecessarily—their recommendations could be taken into consideration in the selection of new books. In setting up # the commit teo he had deliberately refrained from in eluding any members of the Education L)e partment who might be thought to be biased, but he assured the committee that if it required departmental assistance it would be readily given. Touching upon the order of reference, Mr Wright said that it did not confine the committee to the strict lines of the inquiry. It was at liberty to review tho whole ques tioii from Dan to Beersheba. One of the matters for inquiry was that of home worn A great many parents had represented to him that the borne work was too much for their children. The point was whether the children were not being overtaxed for their strength. One employer had told him ho found many lads who had matriculated at tho expense of their health and had become nervous wrecks. Mr Wright said that personally he would sooner see his children “duds” than be nervous wrecks. Health name first. It might be that tho pupils had undertaken too much, and that they had attempted something beyond their mental capacity. It seemed to him that the question whether home work should oo set in the primary schools might very well ba inquiried into. A teacher at Nelson had stated that he had eliminated homo work with successful results. In conclusion, the Minister said he thought the present syllabus was overcrowded, and that too much was bein cf attempted in too short a time. while everyone was anxious for his children to make rapid progress, it should not be done at the expense of their health or comfort. NATURE OF A CURRICULUM. The retiring Director of Education (Mr J. Caughley) pointed out that a curriculum consisted of much more than what the syllabus prescribed. It also embraced moral and other training, and the formation of ideals-of citizenship, etc. A curriculum embodied a country s ideal of what its children should be. Ho suggested to the committee that, in addition to a consideration of the types of children, it should also remember that a large number of the teachers were not able to use originality and freedom as the others did, though they might be quite as efficient as teachers Some provision should be made to give such teachers a lead in drawing up a curriculum for their particular school until they found their feet, for many of them were not long from the Training College. ■, CHAIRMAN’S ADDRESS. The Chairman of tho committee (Professor Lawson) said it seemed to him they were not going to give satisfaction no matter what they recommended. It was a matter of conflicting human interests, and they could not get all of them into tne syllabus. They could only do their best. They would not be able to provide for all sides of primary education. He referred to the question of the teaching of hygiene, and said it seemed that 'they would have to do something in the upper standards of the primary schools to remedy the lack of knowledge • among pupils in that respect. , , , Tho main thine the committee should keep in view was that ability in the business world was a much wider thing than it was years ago. They would come near to success if they made the work in tno syllabus correspond to the practical needs of modern life.