ADULT EDUCATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27392, 18 May 1950, Page 8

ADULT EDUCATION

Extension In Science Subjects ROYAL SOCIETY'S AIM PA WELLINGTON, May 17. . A national conference to review adult education .is proposed by the Royal Society of New Zealand. The society is principally interested in the extension of adult education in science subjects. The council of the society, at its annual meeting today, decided to ask the National Council for Adult Education to consider holding a national conference in which the society would join. The society will also strongly recommend to the Council for Adult Education the appointment of full-time science tutors, and will ask the council to convene joint committees, first on a regional basis, to consider the questions of science in education. The council of the society received a report from its special Advisory Committee containing these recommendations.

A member of this committee, Dr Gilbert Archey, of Auckland, in a statement emphasising the desirability of the extension of adult education in science subjects, said it was strange that, while many scientists today were becoming concerned for public recognition of the place of science, few actively engaged in adult education or in studying the problems involved in increasing the number of scientific courses in the curricula offered. If scientists wished science to be an influence in the community they themselves must interpret its results and explain its method, and the field of adult education offered an opportunity to do this that could not be lightly neglected. Mr F. R. Callaghan, head of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, was elected by the council of the society to succeed Dr H. A. Falla as president. Mr Callaghan was elected unopposed. Dr Falla and Mr J. Marwick (Wellington) were elected vice-presidents. The council elected four new fellows of the society: Professor J. C. Eccles, of Dunedin; Professor P. W. Robertson, of Wellington; Dr H. R. Whitehead, of Palmerston North; and Dr C. R. Laws, of Auckland. ' It was decided to ask the Government for an increased grant to the society. The council received reports of increased costs, particularly in the publication of the transactions of the society. The grant to the society in recent years has been £l5O a year.