EDUCATION

Southland Times, Issue 21657, 19 March 1932, Page 5

EDUCATION

CENTRALIZATION PROPOSAL. STRONG CRITICISM. (Per United Press Association.) Christchurch, March 18. The Canterbury Education Board to-day passed a resolution emphatically protesting against the proposed abolition o£ Education Boards and the centralization of control in Wellington. The chairman, Mr G. W. Armitage, said economy could be effected without rending and breaking down everything as the report proposed. The centralization proposal would give back control to the very people who were responsible for past extravagance and who were primarily responsible for the present state of affairs. COMMISSION’S REPOET STRONG OPPOSITION TO PROPOSALS. Christchurch, March 18. "The conclusion of the Economy Commission has so obviously been arrived at in ignorance of the actual functions of education boards, and with so meagre an investigation into the relative costs of administration, that the board most strenuously opposes the suggestion that the control of education be placed under a central council which could have no real knowledge of local requirements or conditions.” The foregoing was one of the chief comments made by the Canterbury Education Board at its meeting to-day on the asjiects of the economy commission’s report. The board agreed to some of the commission’s most important recommendations, such as closing training colleges and reduction of women teachers’ salaries to a ratio of four-fifths of men’s, but objected to such other proposals as a further reduction of school committees’ allowances and changes in the system of agricultural instruction. It was stated by more than one member that the section of the report dealing with economies in education had been inspired by the Education Department and adopted by the commission without proper examination. The board also approved of the raising of the admission age and the proposals for economy in post primary education. In support of the objection to the commission’s comments on the cost of boards’ administration and especially to a comparison of the costs in different countries, it was stated that of the total cost of 9/2 per pupil in New Zealand, nine board’s share was 5/1 and the department’s 4/1.