The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING, Luceo Non Uro FRIDAY, MAY 19, 1922. EDUCATION.

Southland Times, Issue 19519, 19 May 1922, Page 4

The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING, Luceo Non Uro FRIDAY, MAY 19, 1922. EDUCATION.

Most people will agree with the Hon. Mr Parr that our education system, good as it is, stands in need of some radical alterations. The first and most important of these is a change of method that will more successfully equip the youth of the country for their work in life. At the present time our educational system, is based upon the assumption that all children should be brought up to a certain general standard of knowledge irrespective of circumstances, prospects, or aspirations. After they have been brought up to this standard they are thrown largely upon their own resources to work out their own development upon individual lines as best they can. At the beginning of each year thousands of children enter ihe primary schools of the Dominion' and they all go. the same road through the standards, with a proficiency or competency certificate as the goal in view for the best of them. Those who go on to the secondary schools also travel the same path of educational progress. We make this statement in the broad sense, for we are quite aware that different courses are taken. Some may take Latin and French, while others take ‘‘commercial subjects,” but, broadly speaking, the end in view is matriculation or matriculation standard. The machine turns out boys and girls to very much the same pattern, and each has to adapt himself to his circumstances afterwards as best he can. Mr Parr contends that the effect of this system is to draw the best brains of the country to the professions, and the statement is, to a certain extent true. The young man, or the young woman either, having reached a general standard of education which may conveniently be called the matriculation standard, finds entrance to the University easy if he can win a scholarship, or if his parents can foot the bills. Or, in the case of a profession, which can be entered without attendance at the University, the distance from matriculation standard is but a step, and, the habits of study already formed make the step an easy one to take. In another sense, however, many of the best brains of the country are ‘lost,” just because the owner of them finds it impossible to go to the University. Many a smart youth has to earn his own living and help to support his home while he is still early in his teens. He may not get beyond the sixth standard, he may have a year or a couple of years at a secondary school, he may even pass the matriculation examination, but he must then turn to and take his wages home to his mother at the end of the week. What has our education system done fo? thr youth or the young woman in these eircumstancaa T It has

given him a general training and a fund of general knowledge which is no doubt useful enough to anybody and everybody, but the greater part of it is useless to the youth in the circumstances in which he finds himself on leaving school. Not only that, but it makes him in some degree discontented with his lot. Our present system of education serves well enough for those who propose to enter what are called “the professions,” but we need a system which will give very much better service to those who are destined for the trades and industries of the country. Just as good brains enter the factories and the workshops as go into medicine or law, but the education system of the country does not do as much as it might do to fit them for their job. We need some measure of specialisation in education, and Mr Parr was quite right in saying that we need to revise our outlook in regard to education and educational systems. The subject is one of very considerable difficulty, but if Mr Parr can begin the reform he will lay the country under a heavy obligation.