Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, MONDAY, FEB. 16, 1914. EDUCATION DEPARTMENT.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 13306, 16 February 1914, Page 2

Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, MONDAY, FEB. 16, 1914. EDUCATION DEPARTMENT.

There is a screw loose somewhere m the Education Department, and if the present Government is sincere m it-; ]K>licy of reform it should endeavor to allay the discordant sounds arising from the machinery of this important branch of the publio service. Widespread dissatisfaction was recently expressed over the manner of the appointment of Director of Physical Education at a salary higher than any of our best skilled teachers can hope to attain to, then the teachers themselves had occasion to voice the dissatisfaction they felt over the manner m which they were being treated m regard to increments to their salaries ; and now comes a quarrel with the Wanganui Education Board over tho question of school attendance. It appears from an article in' the Wanganui Herald that the Department recently notified the Wanganui Education Board that it was not considered advisable to encourage children {o secure the maximum attendance at school. Tint idea, says our contemporary, is somewhat inexplicable when it is remembered what determined efforts have been made by the Department for. years to secure attendance at school, and particularly m view of the fact that teachers' salaries are based on the average attendance of the children and not on the number on the roll. Section 137 of the Education Act says :— ■ At every public school certificates shall be obtainable, to be called "good attendance .certificates," and such certificates shall be of two • classes:-— ' (a) For any child of school age attending a public school m the district n who for a period of twelve months . has beep present every ' time the " school was open, both m the morning and afternoon. (b) For any such child who for a like period has not been absent from ' school more than five times m all. It would seem that tiie InspectorGeneral , of Schools . disapproves of that provision, for he, not only petulantly declines to assist the Wanganui Education Board- m furthering the object of attendance by providing special certificate's for an exceptionally good record, but officially deprecates tho efforts made by pupils to gain the certificates provided by law. Commenting on the decision, the Southland News suggests that the Minister, recognising tlie mis- [ taken new of his . principal officer, is j unwilling, from mistaken motives of chivalry, to rebuke him publicly, and I has, therefore, himself assumed' the responsibility. Ho probably does not realise that, the Inspector-General is thus unobtrusively shaping his policy for him. But the graver aspect of the episode is, as our contemporary points out, that the Minister is taking a very improper means of nullifying a provision deliberately inserted m a statute by Parliament. Jf he really -disapproves of Section 137 of the Education Act his proper course is not to attempt to discredit it with those who have. to administer the Act, but to bring m an amendment to repeal that particular section. In endorsing - the indiscreet letter of the " Inspector-General the Minister has established a dangerous precedent from which it wants but a short step to set up again the hated dispensing power tliat was at one time claimed for the Crown. But it is quite likely that- he has done this, unwittingly; that ha is entirely aware of the purport of Section 137, and tliat ho-re' gards good attendance certificates as a new proposal or merely a local seherne. for encouraging regular attendance, instead of being authorised and ordered "by Parliament for thirty years. Tlie Southland paper goes on to assert that it is notorious that the Education Department, under its present regime, has acquired a reputation for autocracy and faddism. Many ladies who have interested themselves m tho subject of the improvement of present methods df teaching sewing and other domestic arts in* the schools have gone so far aa to declare, that the department is pig-headed. During tho debate on the Address-in-Reply last session, Mr G. M. Thomson declared that for some years "the Department had run the Ministers', and not tho Ministers the. Department.". That --is a fairly exact view of tho situation by a very competent judge, and seeing that it comes from one of their strongest and most respected supporters Ministers can hardly take exception, to it. - , '