THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM.

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 54, Issue 3895, 28 April 1937, Page 6

THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM.

INCLUDED in the Government’s legislative programme for next session is an Education Bill, designed to effect important reforms in the present New Zealand system. Both the administrative and the teaching branches of the system are expected to be dealt with. The Minister of Education has given evidence of his determination to be fully informed concerning the defects of the system and the best methods of removing these, before committing himself to a defi-

nite programme. In this he shows both wisdom and prudence. Education has been a popular field for cianks, and some of the present defects of the system are undoubtedly <lue to over-hasty acceptance of their theories in the past. Mr Fraser has taken the more deliberate course of delaying his reforms until he has carefully sounded, as he is now doing, responsible representatives of the various branches of the system. The chief function of elementary education is to lay the foundations of good citizenship; to prepare the pupils for those higher branches of learning best suited to their talents and abilities when they proceed to the secondary schools and the university colleges. The primary school syllabus, and class room methods, should have that end in view. During the secondary school phase the aim should be to so equip the pupil that he, or she, will be sufficiently well-informed, and habits of self-discipline, industry and other essentials of sound character sufficiently well established, to render the subject fit for a career either in higher education at the university or in employment in other spheres. It must be obvious that those two stages, primary and secondary, are the most Important in the life of the average young citizen. Both are formative, and the latter, covering as it does the pediod of adolescence, especially so. It may be take n that the Minister and his advisers fully appreciate this. The care of the pupil during the years of his primary and secondary school career is, indeed, the main preoccupation of his department. Mr Fraser has a wealth of information and authoritative opinion, both local and overseas, upon which he can safely rely in forming his judgment as to what is needed for the improvement of the system. ,The report of the Parliamentary Recess Government, and known" as the Atmore Report, drew largely for its Committee appointed by the Ward findings upon the report of the Hadow Commission which reported on education in Great Britain, and is generally accepted as of weighty authority and broad vision. In that report great emphasis was placed on the importance of extending the school period, primary and secondary, to the age of eighteen. Only thus, it was considered, could the full benefit of the courses laid down, and the fundamental objects of primary-secondary education be attained. These findings, of course, represented the ideals to be sought. That there were, and still are, practical difficulties in the way, is admitted. The chief of these is economic. Clearly a considerable transformation of the economic life of the people would be involved in the task cf bringing the ideals of the Hadow Commission within the reach of all.