The Temuka Leader TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1884. OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1246, 30 September 1884, Page 2

The Temuka Leader TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1884. OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM.

Plank by plank Sir Julius Vogel’s platform has fallen asunder ; and henceforth he will have to strut on the threadbare boards of the “ continuous Ministry.” The visions of millions of borrowed capital with which he enchanted those who wanted to sell and clear out proved the veritable “ stuff that dreams are made of” ; bis land tax proposals vanished into the air ; his modified form of protection melted away into promises of industrial exhibitions ; his local government has to sleep amongst undeveloped schemes for another year at least ; and finally, not a penny of the Education Grant will he touch. He might well exclaim with the Yankee statesman “Them’s my sentiments, and if they don’t suit you they can be altered.” He will alter anything that will secure to him a seat on the Treasury Benches. We take a pride in never having been deluded by the promises of Sir Julius Vogel, We have held from the first time he re-appeared in the political arena that his policy was unsuitable to the condition of the colony—that owing to his long absence he misunderstood the position of affairs —and it gives us pleasure now to notice that we were perfectly correct in the view we took of the matter. In his address to the people of Gisborne he said our Education system was too costly, and tnnt we could have a better article for less money. He repeated this statement at Ashburton, and also in his address to his present constituents, but he never hinted at how the reduction could be made. It was enough that he said it could be done ; no one seemed to deem it necessary to ask how, because the general public believed ha had some grand scheme by which he would educate the rising generation at half the present cost. We will not try to depict the disappointment of his on learning that his scheme consisted merely in reducing the vote by 5s per bead, neither will we express our sympathy with those who allowed themselves to be gulled by his generalising speeches. By this time most of them have no doubt realised that Sir Julius does not possess the power of working miracles, and that in order to carry out our educational system he must have money like any other mortal. Now any school boy could have reduced the education vote by 5s per head, and also abandon the proposal as soon as he found it did not suit. This is all the cleverness Sir Julius Vogel has shown. But if he had gone about making the reduction in a statesman-liko way, he could have done it without interfering in in the least with the efficiency of the system. Our present system is the most cumbersome, the most costly, and the least effective of any we know, and if Sir Julius Vogel had looked at it in a statesman-like way, he might have saved the 5s per head, and made many improvements in it. The first step to take in this direction is to abolish Boards of Education, and place the system under the control of a central department. The present Boards cost over £IO,OOO a year, and that might be saved, besides securing the advantage of having a truly national system of education* We are told

it is a national system, but bow anyone can look upon it as such is what we cannot understand. Every petti-fogging Board of Education is a little government in itself. It has its own laws, regulations, scale of salaries, Inspectors, distinct from all the others, and there are as many systems as there are Boards of Education. As an instance of the wide difference between the various Boards, we may point out that the head master in a school of an average attendance of 200 to 250 would

Per annum. In Auckland ... ...£250 Wanganui ... ... 260 Wellington ... ... 300 N, Canterbury ... 280 8. Canterbury ... 257 Westland ... ... 266 Southland ... 25 8 Otago ... ... 305 Now the system which shows such monstrous incongruities as these is called “ national,” but it has no right to the title. Why should a teacher get only £250 in Auckland for work for which another in Otago gets £305 ? There are a great many other anomalies in the system to which we cannot refer just now, but we think there is enough in the instance we have given to show its absurdity. If the system were truly national there would be a uniform scale of salaries ; a uniform method of teaching and of inspection, and teachers would be promoted to higher schools according to their merits. We have now three bodies governing our Educational System, viz. : the Department in Wellington ; the Boards of Education ; and the School Committees ; and it stands to reason that unnecessary expense is incurred in maintaining them. The first step is to abolish Boards of Education and give extended powers to School Committees and to have a staff of Inspectors coming round periodically, and responsible only to the Department in Wellington. The next is, the revenue of secondary education should be handed over to (he Consolidated funds, and if this were done, not only 5s but 10s per head of the pupils would be saved. But Sir Julius Vogel has not done this, and, as he has not, he has rendered himself ridiculous by proposing a reduction and then abandoning the proposal when he found it would not be supported by the House. The proposal to reduce v.ill]out providing ways and means for carrying on education was simply absurd and ought never to have been made.