EDUCATION IN NEW ZEALAND.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18490, 4 February 1930, Page 7

EDUCATION IN NEW ZEALAND.

VIEWS OF CANADIAN VISITOR. MOVING ALONG RIGHT LINES. There is at least one New Zealander among the Canadian bowlers. This is Mr H. Westoby, who was born in Napier, and who went to the States and Canada as a young man. Mr Westoby is a former Mayor of the city of Guelph, which has a population of 35,000, and which is the Royal city of Canada. He was at one time chairman of the Board of Education of the same city, and in conversation with a “Herald” reporter yesterday, Mr Westoby said that he was particularly impressed with the schooling system of this Dominion. He noted, he said, that in Timaru all the schools possessed school colours, which was an excellent thing and was superior to what they had in Canada. They had school colours there, but did not have caps, or ties or blazers, merely sweaters, “Our collegiates, as they are called,” said Mr Westoby, “are really secondary colleges, and in the larger centres they have about a thousand pupils in each school. These pupils are boys and girls who have, of course, passed through the lower schools, and who desire a higher education with a view to going on to the universities. Your curriculum, which I have taken some pains to study, having received information from the Minister of Education in Wellington, shows that you in this country are working along right lines, and you are laying the foundation in New Zealand for a very high type of boy and girl, who will materially benefit the Dominion in years to come.”

Mr Westoby went on to say that the schools in New Zealand were not as large as those of Canada, but they gave every indication of being well planned and admirably administered. On many he had noticed mottos, such as “Play the Game,” and he had also been impressed with the fact that about most schools flowers were grown, thus inculcating in the young minds thoughts of the beautiful in life. “When I was a small boy,” said Mr Westoby, “I lived in Napier, so that I spent some time in you schools, and can therefore speak with a certain amount of authority as to what is taught in New Zealand, and what is taught in Canada. There is really very little difference, excepting this that our big Dominion, with its great wealth, is able to spend more on education than you can hope to do today. In the city of Guelph, where I live, one half of the municipal tax rate goes to school maintenance, and you can see from this that our schc 3 must necessarily be maintained on a very high standard. In Toronto, which has a population of about 700,000, about 12 per cent, of the municipal tax rate goes to the maintenance of schools, but in all the smaller centres of Ontario, it is generally from one-third to one-half, due to the fact that we give a great deal of attention to the erection of schools, the equipment of them, and to their maintenance.”

Reference was then made by Mr Westoby to the system inaugurated a few years ago of the exchange of teachers. He said that it had been the custom in Canada to exchange teachers, and if any teachers from New Zealand desired to spend a year in Canada, or vice versa, an exchange was arranged between the Canadian and New Zealand Governments. In this way, a teacher could go from Timaru to Guelph, c' wote a year to teaching in a school there, and then return to Timaru possessed of new ideas and inspirations. “We have many teachers on transfer from Great Britain to Canada,” said Mr Westoby, “and also from the United States, but the schooling system there is different to that in Canada. This exchange of teachers is a new idea, brought into effect a few years ago, and I believe that ultimately it will have a very broadening effect on the education of the world.”