THE EDUCATIONAL LADDER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23517, 4 June 1938, Page 14

THE EDUCATIONAL LADDER

In his presidential address at the annual meeting of the Otago branch of the. New Zealand Educational Institute Mr N. Matheson seems to have conjoined with acclamation of improvements in education in New Zealand during the past year or two —for which he gives the present Minister of Education large credit—an anticipation of improvements to come that would be distinctly farreaching. Partly these last would hinge upon the unification of educational control that is contemplated under the Education Bill, and, an envisaged, would apply to secondarjr school education. Mr Matheson spoke of the outstanding advance in primary education represented in the abolition of the proficiency examination and the resultant freedom afforded teachers. He also referred, in perhaps the most interesting part of his address, to the effect of this change on secondary schools. Of this not much has been heard thus far, but it is to be gathered that there is some complaint that children are entering secondary schools when they are illprepared for them. If such is the case, it does not appear to be altogether surprising. An examination is regarded as essential to the incursion into the university colleges of ill-prepared students. Mr Matheson answers the complaint by a destructive criticism of what he calls the cast-iron rigidity of the secondary schools, referring to the ties that bound primary education to the proficiency examination as nothing to those that link secondary education to matriculation. In his views respecting the solution of that aspect of the educational problemof which an accentuation is indicated in consequence of the abolition of the proficiency examination—Mr Matheson would apparently admit little compromise with the existing curriculum of secondary schools. It is a large question which is thus opened up, and Mr Matheson has considered it from aspects which seem to be worthy of consideration and discussion. Changes in the educational outlook appear to be continuously presenting themselves, and finality is evidently quite be-, yond reach. The happy medium between the ideal and the-practical is most elusive. There may be danger, however, in attempts to differentiate between education and instruction, all to the detriment of instruction. Children presumably do go to school, when all is said, for instruction, and their parents expect them to receive it. From the point of view which he advances, however, Mr Matheson seeks to establish a definite case for the unification of educational control in the interests of what he differentiates as the nonacademic child, who with the abolition of the proficiency test and the raising of the school age, will, h® suggests, encounter increasing difficulty in fitting himself into th® “ narrow groove of academicism.”