AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16297, 23 March 1927, Page 7

AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION

LINCOLN COLLEGE STATUS PROBLEM OF RIVAL INTERESTS (Special to the Herald.! WELLINGTON, this day. An important conference legartung agricultural education takes place .today between the representatives of tne Lincoln College Board of Uovernors and the Agricultural University' College Board. An endeavor will be made, to-' come to an agreement between these bodies with a view to Lincoln College being absorbed in the national Agricultural University. There are dilficulties in the 1 way which have so far proved a formidable obstacle, out a line oi compromise which may give the South Island an effective part in the system is to allocate to Lincoln College a definite share in instructional worus, arranging for pupils at the "Palmerston North institution to spend a portion of their time at Lincoln studying such aspects of agriculture as cereal growing and root crops. Apart from the Lincoln College problem, there is a larger difficulty fating those anxious to recast New Zealand's agricultural educational system. , It has become an open secret that difficulties over the relative responsibility for th§"; various aspects of education and research have 'caused lively differences of opinion between the Department of Agriculture, the Board of Scientific and Industrial Research, and the newly-formed Agricultural College Council. Any practical agricultural instruction now available to New Zealand farmers is being given by the Department of Agriculture officials, about 300 in number, who, in the course of their general duties, devote a good deal of time to useful instructional work for the benefit of practical farmers. A proposal by the Agricultural College Council to take over educational work of this nature meets with opposition from those who have built up the existing instructional system and who resent any interference with it. . CLOSER CONTROL DESIRED.' . The Board of Scientific and Industrial - Research, which was intended as a body to co-ordinate all scientific research, seems to desire closer control and direction than is deemed sufficient by those j carrying >ut the present activities. *| No official information is available regarding the progress of the initial scheme to establish a dairy school at Palmerston North, probably the reason for the lack of definite progress reports being that various conflicting interests have not yet arrived at a conimon understanding on the fundamental principles of the scheme for an improved agricultural education system in New Zealand.