The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET AUCKLAND WEDNESDAY, JULY 16, 1930 BETTER EDUCATION FOR BIG MONEY

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1025, 16 July 1930, Page 10

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET AUCKLAND WEDNESDAY, JULY 16, 1930 BETTER EDUCATION FOR BIG MONEY

NEW ZEALAND lags behind many countries in respect of its State system of education. It pays more than most othernations for the school instruction of each pupil, but does not get any better, if as good, results. The method of administrative control is extravagant, and full of conditions that fairly can be described as chaotic in many features. These are not the churlish opinions of partisans or prejudiced observers. They unfortunately happen to be an epitome of cold facts gleaned by a Select Committee that was appointed by the United Government last year to investigate the Dominion’s system of education and report its findings. It is to be hoped that things are really not so bad as they appeared to the committee of ten members of Parliament, including the Minister of Education, and that, at the worst, the average truth will be proved as usual not to be the whole truth. Still, the committee of inquiry found enough defects to compel it to propose drastic changes in the present system. It does not follow that the committee’s proposals will be accepted in their entirety by Parliament or by the country. Some of them merely represent another exercise of the tinkering policy which, for the past thirty years, has made New Zealand’s education system more notorious for expensive experiments than for highly successful instruction. With a volubility characteristic of politicians the committee’s report covers sixty foolscap pages of close print. Why lias education failed to teach legislators the value of clear brevity and that wisdom of Solomon’s which is “more moving than any motion”? The elaborate effusion might well have been reduced to a thousand simple, plain words about obvious defects in the existing system and the best available remedies. A summary of the committee’s conclusions may be given adequately in a few main points of vital interest to the whole country, it has been recommended that primary education should stop at eleven years of age and thereafter be supplemented in higher-grade classes until fifteen years, with exemption from the compulsory timelimit for cases of undue hardship. Exploratory courses are suggested to find out the special aptitudes of pupils. These cover the full range of primary education, and are to be welcomed, if results were to be as good as the promise of value in the proposals. The committee, however, does not say. and possibly does not know, whether the proposed changes would improve tinpresent standard of education. A perfect world would shapeeducation to the aptitudes of pupils, but where is there perfection in anything? Hard circumstances too frequently work havoc on special aptitude. And the trouble with most of the world today is that the greatest proportion of its youth is convinced too soon that it has an aptitude for easy billets with generous governments ever ready to soften periods of economic adversity. Other proposals mainly affect, the administration of State schools. In this sphere of squander and overlapping of wellintentioned effort, there is ample scope for drastic reform. It is all very well to talk glibly about the value of local interest and enthusiastic local authority, but when these admirable virtues cost double the price paid elsewhere for better results, then the time has come for the introduction and enforcement of more economical methods of control. The suggestion to reduce the number of local educational authorities from 54 to 18 deserves appreciative consideration. There is not always wisdom in a multitude of counsellors. The Dominion’s system of education suffers grievously through extensive and conflicting control. There arc too many administrators and more than enough of experts who merely have been able to prove that the system they administer is defective and not free of chaotic conditions. Abolition of two-thirds of their grotesquely high total would confer a boon on the fleeced taxpayer. The committee also is to be commended for its recommendation that there should be established a national teaching service with a new salary scale. It is essential to get rid of existing anomalies and the constant discontent over the wage-disparity between teachers in the different grades of schools. As for the pronounced bias of the committee toward agricultural instruction, the idea to teacli children to go on the land is an excellent one, but what guarantee can the State or anybody else give that farms or profitable farm labour will be available for agricultural scholars? Parliament should take time to consider a drastic scheme of educational reform before plunging into another sea of experiment.

ADVERTISING NEW ZEALAND

NEW ZEALAND’S annual expenditure on self-advertisement is £36,000, excluding the running costs of the High Commissioner’s Office in London. Despite this regular outlay, complaints from various overseas sources to the effect that the Dominion’s publicity is inadequate or, in some quarters, non-existent, are becoming significantly common. Yesterday The Sun published the letter of a correspondent—an English visitor—who expressed regret “that the charms of New Zealand are so little known in the Old Country.” In the same issue was printed an interview with a New York business naan who had precisely the same complaint to make of New Zealand publicity in Hawaii—a meetingplace of American and international tourists—and the United States. These two expressions of opinion are typical of many received or gathered by interviewers all the year round, and to disregard them or discount them as the idle chatter of talkative visitors would be foolish. Is New Zealand too modest? Are the beauties of her lakes and i-ivers, the grandeurs of her mountains and fiords, the wonders of her caves and thermal regions, and her riches a sportsman’s Eldorado, lying unnoticed by a world whose eyes are attracted to other and less favoured spots? The answer lies in the Publicity Branch’s summary of expenditure, but it is not a complete answer, for the available evidence raises a doubt as to whether the country is receiving value for its advertising outlay. It is not suggested that expenditure should be increased, for, at a time when economy must he the keynote of every State enterprise, a policy involving higher annual publicity costs would be as reprehensible as its opposite extreme—a Micawber-like inactivity based on the hope that New Zealand will advertise itself. But it is strongly suggested that a thorough review of the present publicity system, in the light, of a young department’s riper experience, may disclose existing weaknesses and point to the need for the adoption of more effective methods. Since the release of the Publicity Branch’s last statement of expenditure, important administrative and policy changes have been made. It is perhaps too soon to estimate the publicity value of direct representation in the United States, and in the absence of information as to the branch’s reactions to altered economic conditions-overseas speculation based on past figures would he valueless. Nevertheless, it is abundantly clear that the £33,000 actually distributed by the branch for publicity purposes is failing to produce the comprehensive effect that is desired. Either the amount is inadequate, in which ease New Zealand must he content with what her moderate purse can secure, or the methods are at fault. The system should be investigated and the truth discovered.