THE NEW EDUCATION POLICY.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 July 1930, Page 10

THE NEW EDUCATION POLICY.

The more the new education proposals are examined the plainer is seen the hand of the bureaucrat in their framing. The centralised control is justified as making for economy of administration, but the figures submitted by the Director bf Education (Mr. Strong) in support of this contention have already been seriously questioned. Mr. Strong urged that th© Australian systems were those of control by a central department, and that this showed a considerable saving upon the system in this country. The chairman of the Auckland Education Board has shown that Mr. Strong’s figures do not coincide with official statements made in New South Wales, where expenditure is greater than in any other State in the Common-, wealth; He asks, with some pertinence, whether the Minister can feel assured that the evidence upon which -the establishment of centralised control has been based can be fully relied upon. The experience of departmental administration in New Zealand as against decentralised authority is certainly not in favour of the former in regard to expense, and the country will need to be thoroughly convinced that economy will be achieved if education boards are to be wiped out, or made the satellites of a bureaucracy. There is a suggestion that a conference of education boards be held to consider the new policy and to present the case for decentralised control, in some degree at all events, before the Parliamentary authorities while new legislation is under • consideration. There is a good deal to commend this suggestion. A face to face- discussion with the Minister and with his expert adv isers might remove many misunderstandings. It would afford an opportunity of placing before the public the case for local authority in certain phases of administration and of examining the evidence to be submitted by official advisers to the Ministry.- If the real interest of the public in education is to be maintained and increased there must be warm co-operation between the authorities, local and central, by way of a beginning. If the department is to ride* roughshod over local authorities who have given much single-minded service to the State the chances of co-operative efforts later on are not good. Education is too important a matter for mere bureaucracy to handle...