EDUCATION, AND MONEY'S WORTH.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIIC, Issue 14140, 25 February 1910, Page 4

EDUCATION, AND MONEY'S WORTH.

Ilhe Education Department has this month held two conferences, one of mixed school authorities, the other of School Inspectors only, and when both were over two of the most important questions that could have been discussed'. had not bosn dealt with. One of these ought to have been brought lip at the Inspectors' Conference, but so much, of its time was spent on comparatively trifling details that it was not reached. A standing question in connection with education is: Is the country getting its money's worth? Mr H. Hill, Inspector of Hawke's Bay, says it is not, as far as tlie primary schools are concerned, because so large a proportion of the . children leave' school too early to have ! really benefited by the schooling they have received. The Sixth Standard has been fixed as the minimum of satisfactory attainment for the primary school pupil (and it is quite low enough for those who are to go no further with their school training/ . too low in fact), yet tlio Fifth Standard is fixed by Regulations as a sufficient though not satisfactory minimum. •Mr Hill finds from Departmental statistics that about two-thirds of the pupils leave school before they have passed the Sixth Standard, and a large proportion of these before they have passed the Fifth. These are regrettable leakages. The greater leakage occurs among pupils who have passed the Fifth Standard; but it may well be that the smaller number who leave a school year earlier represent the greater waste. So far as this portion of the schools is concerned, it is quite clear that the country does not get its money'a, worth; and it is certain that those who leave before reaching the Sixth Standard represent a great waste also, Mr Hill says there is no power to prevent the leakage. The Regulation of course takes away the power of compelling attendance after the Fifth Standard has been passed; a piece of foolishness' that could be easily remedied. The primary education system was adopted by the State as a measure of public necessity; if it is not necessary in the case of a majority of the pupils to carry them on beyond the Fifth Standard, it cannot be necessary in the case of the remainder. It if "pays" to carry on these, it would pay to carry on those also. The other point alluded to at the outset has been raised since the Conferences by tha President of the Medical Association, who in liis presidential address a day or two ago argued that school life should begin, instead of at five years as provided by the Regulations, not sooner than seven, because in those two years the infant is busily building up its brain and should not be asked to set it to work learning lessons. Many cases could be cited of children who began school at seven and speedily overtook those who began two years earlier. If it may be safely assumed that these were but average children, there is here again a case in which the country is not getting its money's worth, but is wasting it in infant schools and infant classes.