TECHNICAL COLLEGE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21827, 14 December 1932, Page 2

TECHNICAL COLLEGE

MEETING OF ' MANAGERS The monthly'mooting of the managers of the King Edward Technical College was held yesterday afternoon; present: Messrs T. Scott (chairman), J. J. Marlow, W. W. Batchelor, G. Clark, H. H. Leary, L. Sanderson, C. J. Hayward, W. Steele, and Mrs W. Herbert. A vote of sympathy with Mrs Horn was passed in the recent death of her husband, and it was resolved to frame a resolution of appreciation of Mr Horn’s services on the Board of Managers. GENERAL. Mr Marlow was appointed vice-chair-man. The department wrote regarding (he payment of special allowances for heads of departments. It was stated that the payments would he approved for 1932, but no promise was made for 1933. — It was decided to communicate with the department on the matter. The department wrote authorising the appointment of student teachers in technical colleges for 1933. —It was decided to recommend Miss Webster as a student teacher. PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT TO STUDENTS. •Mr R. G. Ridling, principal of the Technical College, Wellington, wrote stating that he had forwarded the following letter to the registrar of the Pharmacy Board of New Zealand: —“I am in receipt of an astonishing piece of information concerning the commencement of classes in chemistry by the Pharmacy Board in which it is asserted that a lecturer, presumably appointed by your board, is offering preferential treatment, in so far as examinations are concerned, to students who carry out work under him. I trust that your hoard will not sanction such a reprehensible practice/* —The registrar had replied stating that this concession to candidates was no new thing. It had been the hoard’s practice, in accordance with its gazetted regulations, for 15 or 20 years, and it was a usual practice in several of the Australian States. Now that attention had been drawn to the matter, it would be reviewed at a later date and a change made if found desirable. —Mr Ridling added that he had forwarded a reply to the registrar, stating that no reputable examining body ought to consider such a practice for one moment. _lf the board persisted in its determination it would penalise all students holding free places, under the Education Department, who would not be able to obtain the necessary instruction in pharmacy subjects in the college, and would be compelled to pay for instruction outside. —The chairman said the principle was altogether wrong.—Mr Aldridge (principal) said that students who went through the hands of the lecturer referred to would have preference with the Pharmacy Board. It gave his students a pull over others—Members expressed surprise at the existence of_ such a state of things, and it was decided to hand Mr Eidling’s letter to the press, THE SEASON’S GREETINGS.

The chairman conveyed the season’s greetings to the board, and members reciprocated the chairman’s good wishes. The board expressed to Mr Aldridge (principal) and the staff its appreciation of their work in the past year. PRINCIPAL’S REPORT.

The principal’s report, for presentation to the Minister of Education, was approved’ by- the board. The report dealt with the work carried out in the school during the year, and contained the following clauses with reference to the broader question of educational policy, which had emerged during the year: — It is now common to hear education spoken of as being in a state of flux. In so far as the public generally come to see educational questions not ns settled once for all, but as liable to be revised from time to time, there i 3 a gain, but in matters which touch the life of a community as closely as does education, there is always danger that a simple and apparently obvious step may prove the wrong one, unless one is genuinely familiar with the tendencies at work within the schools themselves. In technical schools to discover and provide for new tendencies has always been part of the job. After carefully reading the last departmental report, which came to hand only a few weeks ago, one comes to the conclusion that the department is anxious to set up as many intermediate schools and combined schools as possible in order to lessen the number of varieties of post primary schools; the inference being that technical high schools are likely to become fewer. Support for this inference is given by the fact that the superintendent of technical education’s section of the report takes the form of a statement dealing with the contribution that the technical school has made to education in New Zealand. His report reads like a defence of the technical high school i it reaches an extremely high level of judicial comment, and is worthy of being printed in full in every newspaper in the Dominion. , , i i It is unfortunate that one should need such stray indications as these for a "uide into New Zealand’s educational future, for it has been the custom hitherto for the department to take teachers into its confidence, and by no means rare for it to consult them. In times like these, when the methods by which the department exercises authority are open to much searching criticism from many sections of the public, one would like to sec pains taken to publish, patiently and at some length, ripe and considered schemes for the reorganisation of the system. Radical changes introduced by sheer authority needlessly irritate those who are, after all, coworkers with the department in a national service. , tl Like every other section of the government service, technical schools ha\c had to face very considerable reductions in their income, amounting to no loss than 40 per cent, of their incidental expenses. The full effect of this diastic curtailment has not yet been felt, and one cannot yet say how much further we on"ht to reduce services which we have learned to take for granted. Many I unseen economics have been effected this year: the board’s staff has been I reduced, all permanent improvements j have been postponed (with the exception of the mechanical stoker, which I may yet lie a means to greater economy), i and, more serious still, the upkeep of I buildings and playgrounds has had to ! fall far behind. In this direction a i heavy expenditure is likely to mount up I in the near future. ! Rut a lessened revenue was only to be I expected in difficult times. For the | other new act of rule from Wellington, i namely, the imposition upon all second i year pupils, without due notice, of a ! uniform intermediate examination, no j one was prepared. This merits more ; than a passing reference. The Minis- : tcr’s annual report for 1031 explains the move thus: “It was. . . felt th.at the ; system (award of senior free places) ! should Ixi tested periodically by holding | a definite, and, as far as possible, unii form examination of candidates. By ! this means both the school principals i and the officers of the department would I know whether or not the standard of ; appraisement of the pupils’ fitness for | further secondary education was suffii ciently high and reasonably uniform j throughout the Dominion.” The words i used are fair words, but they are not i likely to rouse gentle feelings in any j one who has seen something of the un- ' just, wasteful, if not almost futile, j examination that has been thrust upon I post-primary schools. Of the 9000 can-

didates who were to sit, almost onethird could have been ruled out as unlikely to pass if the department had consulted heads of schools. Of the remainder, since teachers were to be virtually coaches, selectors of subjects, supervisors, and examiners, it is hard to sec why the ponderous machinery of the examinations branch should be set in motion to create the fiction that candidates would be known only by their code numbers. The department, in its attachment to the idea of uniformity, seems not to have, realised the injustice of prescribing subjects and syllabuses which had not been included in courses already approved, nor did it seem ready for the numerous amendments which its scheme was itself fated to undergo up till practically the commencement of the examination. To impose an examination under these conditions was to rob it of a great deal of its value. But the point above all others which condemns it. and which makes one wonder if the department is not to suffer a serious loss of prestige through this experiment, is that no attention was paid to the fact that the majority of second year pupils would never have sat such an examination, or indeed any other public test, except under compulsion; that they, at any rate, know themselves not to be candidates who would be successful in exacting and long continued tests, that they never had any intention of claiming from the Government free education up to the age of 19, but merely asked for the right to remain at school, following a course of profitable study until they could earn their living. And new a number of embarrassing questions arise. A number of pupils have sat an unfair test, and will have failed. What is to happen to them next year? Again, what does the department consider to be the duty of schools towards next year’s supply of second year pupils? Teachers will assume it to be their duty to prepare all and sundry for another examination of this kind unless the department disclaims the last one; and if so, what did the director of education really mean when he spoke recently against regarding examinations as the chief end of schools? Again, why was the test set in 1932? This year’s official reports make it clear that inspectors were fully aware of the 1930 proficiency passes having been giventoo liberally? What was then to be gaihed in proving that fact twice over? The more one reflects, the more slippery seems to be the ground on which the department stands.

Surely the department would have been wiser to devote 1932 to working out a new set of senior free place regu lations —a work that is long overdue — regulations that should take into account the varying needs of pupils of different types. That work still needs to bo done, but schools may be pardoned now for questioning whether the department as a whole grasps the problem before it.