EQUAL OPPORTUNITY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19377, 15 July 1937, Page 4

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY

EDUCATION IN DOMINION OUTLINE “BY MINISTER (Per Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, this day. Overseas delegates and visitors to the New Education Fellowship conference were entertained yesterday at a conversazione arranged by the North Canterbury branch of the New Zealand Educational Institute. The aims of State education in the Dominion were outlined by the acting-Prime Minister, the Hon. P. Fraser. “What we are aiming at is secondary education of some sort for all the people,” Mr. Fraser said. “We are trying to give equal opportunity to all and to bring a measure of culture within the reach of everyone with an appreciation of literature and art, regardless of their occupation. We do not aim at an educational hierachy. “At the present time there is some controversy about secular education and about religious services in the schools. This might appear to loom unduly large in educational life in New Zealand. The visitors will appreciate that in New Zealand there is no State church and that all religions are given equal status. “The country decided years ago on a secular system of education and the children of parents of all denominations, and of none, mix in the schools on the best of terms and friendship.”

This was a great factor, said Mr. Fraser, contributing to the fortunate absence of intolerance, strife and sectarian bigotry, from which the Dominion was happily free. An appreciation of this fact would be a useful key to an appreciation of the attitude of teachers in the Dominion.

NEARING THE CLOSE AUCKLAND SESSIONS LECTURES AND STUDY (Per Press Association.) AUCKLAND, this day. Informative surveys of advanced teaching practice overseas, occasional criticism of the methods operating in New Zealand and phychological aspects of child study were offered by distinguished overseas speakers who took part in 10 lectures and study groups which formed the session yesterday of the New Education Fellowship regional conference. Emphasis was again laid by several lecturers on the necessity for close co-operation between the school and the home.

Although to-day marks the close of the conference in Auckland a full programme of seminars and lectures has been arranged. The proceedings are to terminate with a social evening in the Town Hall.