“EDUCATION TOO SLOW”

Taranaki Daily News, 13 June 1930, Page 11

“EDUCATION TOO SLOW”

CRITICISM OF THE DIRECTOR NEED TO SPEED LOWER GLASSES. . i LESSONS FROM OTHER COUNTRIES By Telegraph.—Press Association. Wellington, Last Night. The view that progress in the lower classes in New Zealand primary schools was much too leisurely was put forward by Mr. T. B. Strong, Director of Education, in an address to the Council of Education to-day. In Australia, he said, the syllabus was much more comprehensive than ours. He thought, however, consider tble advance had been made in New Zealand in the direction of giving primary school teachers greater liberty, making tho instruction more practical and less formal and giving due emphasis to the cultural side. In one aspect, however, the New Zealand system failed. He had been led to that conclusion because his observations in Australia had confirmed; the opinion that he had held for some years. It was probably one of , |he most important results of his Visit abroad. The primary school syllabus appeared to fail because it did not provide rapid enough advance from stage to-stage. While some classes haq a reasonable amount of work to do others were almost marking time for some time during tho school year. The point, said Mr. Strong, was a debatable one. Progress in the lower classes in New Zealand schools was much top leisurely. Some knew it was , the view he had brought forward before and which had met with considerable opposition. His own efforts to put more work on to tho lower classes to make room for greater advance in the higher classes and the reaching of a higher standard of attainment in Standard Vl-iad been opposed, and he had had to give way. Comparing the sylla-. ■bus of to-day with the syllabus of the past ho always noted a. tendency, to take something out rather than to put something, in. ;He knew there wap a popular opinion that the syllabus ■ was overcrowded. He did not think it was overcrowded. and he was led to the conclusion that more could be done, particularly in the .lower part of tho school. DEMANDS INVESTIGATION. It was a very serious matter and one that affected all branches of education in New Zealand from primary to university, said Mr. Strong, and he thought it demanded, very close investigation, He was forced to the conclusion from his observations in New South Wales and Victoria that they did reach a higher standard of. education in less time than children in New Zealand did. He was well aware that was unpeasant criticism from him, for. as a New Zeaander he was proud of the country’s system. It was one-of the weaknesses of the system and we had to see to it.. He proposed next we.ek, when all the inspectors of the Dominion met in conference, to take up the matter very . seriously with - them. He had had the.-subject in mind for a number of ypars but yet had had no definite basis on which to found the opinion. Ho was more convinced, however, from his visit to Australia that there was some ground for the criticism he made. It had become the fashion with some educationists in New Zealand. to decry without-ceasing the education system. One of these at a recent meeting in Wellington was reported as sayingt “Wo can pay too much for a system of education that is out of date as well as unsuited to the needs of. New Zealand.” Professor Condliffo in his recently published book, “New Zealand In thb Making,” was so ignorant of the New Zealand education system as. to say there had been practically no change in the school#* since 1871., “Statements like these are so absurd as to carry their own refutation,” concluded' Mr. Strong. “I am not going to suggest the New Zealand education system; cannot be improved. Judging by what I saw recently in Australia And. by - ,what l have read of systems in other countries our own can be improved, and if the people of New Zealand will, proyide the money they can have improvements.’