NEW ZEALAND EDUCATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23830, 9 June 1939, Page 5

NEW ZEALAND EDUCATION

bureaucratic control (From Our Own Correspondent) LONDON, May 4. A report by Professor I. L. Kandel on types of Administratn with particular reference to the educational systems of New Zealand and Australia is reviewed by the Scottish Educational Journal “ Preparatory to a severely critical assessment and condemnation of the New Zealand and Australian educational systems for their excessive centralisation. Professor Kandei .formulates the principles of educational administration and thus makes this monograph the best up-to-date introduction to the subject of educational administration it is stated. „ . “Aristotle in his Politics contends that the citizen should be moulded to suit the form of government under which he lives; if the states is democratic then the education should be democratic, but if the state is oligarchic then the education should be oligarchic. Professor Kandei explains how the totalitarian states control education through centralisation, and he ’"leads for the democratisation of education ii, democratic countries. The paradox is that in democratic countries the education should be determined not by political hut by educational considerations. “What we actually find is nevertheless a development of bureaucratic control in democratic countries which frustrate., the training 0 t free personalities essential to the continuance of democratic government France, one of the ?reat European democracies, has a dghly developed centrahsed system which is notwithstanding saved from most of the evils of bureaucratic 'ontrol by the- fact that the curriculum of the French schools is dominated by the concept of culture generale. “ New Zealanr and Australia have, however, succumbed to bureaucratic control. This -aluable survey of New Zeal, nd and A tralian education was made possible by funds granted by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.”