THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1935. THE OUTLOOK FOR EDUCATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22755, 16 December 1935, Page 10

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1935. THE OUTLOOK FOR EDUCATION

The circumstances in which the school year is closing are attended with an interest which derives less from any educational developments within the past twelve months than from what is in prospect. The educational year may be said to end on a note of interrogation. A new Government is in office, and in the educational field, as in others, there is curiosity as to what it may make of its opportunities. There is more than curiosity, of course, for every enthusiast who hopes for the dawn of a new educational era will be looking expectantly to the Government. The Minister of Education admits that he has been “ overwhelmed” with messages’of goodwill and offers of co-operation from parents’ associations, education boards, school committees, teachers’ organisations —primary, secondary and technical—and university colleges. “Right throughout the realm of education,” he has observed, “ there has been a single-minded desire to co-operate with the Minister of Education and the Government so as to give the child the very best opportunity educationally.” That there should be some such manifestation is not a matter for surprise. But the Minister would be ill-advised to place too much reliance upon its single-mindedness. If he gives ear to a tenth part of the counsel that is likely to be available to him on the subject of education, he will be in danger of exposing himself to the risk of a nervous breakdown. There is no question in the world over which there is greater controversy than there is over education. The educational field is a happy hunting ground of the faddist. The yearning evinced in so many quarters to cooperate with the Government will have diverse inspirations. It will be based on an anticipation of favours and benefits to come. A concentrated purpose of all this eagerness to help will be to persuade the Government to spend generously upon education in all its branches. There is a school of thought which insists that upon education too much money cannot possibly be spent —that in an enlightened educational policy there can be no place whatever for economy. Yet that money can be wasted educationally, as in other directions, need not be doubted.

The belief has been encouraged that the Government now in office will be a spending Government which will not be seriously troubled over the problem of finance. The new Minister of Education has been discreet, however, in employing at the outset a formula made very familiar by his predecessors, nameljf that the educational programme must depend upon the money available. In saying that the Government cannot work miracles, or spirit money out of the skies, Mr Fraser has delivered an utterance that is calculated to dash some of the expectations of those who may have confidently anticipated that under the new regime a prodigal expenditure on education would be assured. That the outlay must almost immediately increase somewhat considerably is apparent. Measures adopted for reasons of economy are to be jettisoned. The five-year-old children are to be readmitted to the schools, if not at the beginning of the next school year at least as soon as possible. That will involve a need for the provision of more, classrooms. It will necessitate the training of more teachers, and more are to be trained accordingly. The announcement that the Dunedin Training College is to be reopened in March next will afford much gratification in this part of the Dominion. From the point of view of economy it remains doubtful whether sufficient reason ever existed for the closing of ,

this institution, and with a policy of centralisation in the training of teachers there can be no sympathy in Otago, which has its own strong educational tradition. Perhaps over the case of the five-year-old children there has been more agitation than the circumstances have actually warranted. Members of the educational profession in New Zealand are not so absolutely altruistic in their outlook that they are entirely unmindful of their own interests. Apart from such steps as it has immediately in view the Government’s educational policy is being expressed, not without platitude, in terms suggestive of somewhat vague aspiration. Prom the observations offered on the subject by Mr Nash, Minister of Finance, it might be supposed that the Government is seized with the conviction that a new educational ideal is needed in New Zealand, but is not quite sure yet what it should be. If, in its desire to lay down an education system “more worthy of the human mind and spirit” the Government, as Mr Nash says, requires all the ability, all the co-operation, and all the ideas of those interested in education, its case may be one for sympathy. He has suggested that the education system in New Zealand is all behind the times. But such generalisations are easily offered. The merits of the system have not all disappeared in a day.