EDUCATIONAL MATTERS

Star (Christchurch), Issue 8751, 13 October 1906, Page 5

EDUCATIONAL MATTERS

POINTS FROM THE DEBATE [From Our Correspondent.]

WELLINGTON, October 13. " If I were in a position to- dictate to those who control educational matters," said Mr T. M. Wilford. " I should abolish home lessons altogether. I believe that it i^ as wrong to work a young child as it is wrong to work a young oolt until it has a fashioned physique. Continued mental activity in the growing body affects the future health of the individual, and prevents the natural enlargement that would come from a less exhausting system of instruction. I should like to see the young child's education confined to the schools. Outside the schools the children should play and enjoy themselves."

Mr G. Laurenson said that he* was not one of those .who demanded a literary education. The education system was becoming more and more practical, and the more practical it became the better for the colony.

Mr F. R. Flatman demanded that no person should be allowed to teach children without first attaining the standard of proficiency demanded by the Education Department. A governess teaching in a private family should be required, he maintained, to hold a proper certificate.

"This average attendance," said Mr Baume, '"is a most unsatisfactory basis far a system of teachers' salaries. The fixing of a complete scale is difficult, but there dhould at any rate be a minimum salary for a certain qualification. The justice of that is beyond all doubt."

"It is a crying shame that children in the back-blocks are riot able to- cecure the advantage of the best teaching skill," said Mr Thomson. "Hundreds of children are growing up in this country, and going out into the world, unable to do even common arithmetic. In the baok-bkeks an undue proportion of the children are unable to secure certificates of proficiency. The majority of them have to take certificates of competency, and a^e debarred from the privileges of free secondary education."

" I do not think ue school committee is the best judge of the qualificationa of a teacher," said the member for Auckland East. "The Education Board is in a better position to judge, and there is too much back-stairs influence in connection with the committees. Moreover, the religious element influences the committees more than it does the Board." , "I admit the school committees have faults " said Mr J. C. Thomson, " but it is absolutely impossible for hack-stairs influence to secure appointments. As a member of a>n Education Board, I can say that there is no canvassing. In fact, that is a disqualification." Mr A. W. Rutherford asked the Minister why, in view of the frequent complaints from the back-blocks, the Education Department had not spent the whole of the £8000 voted for the conveyance of children to school.

The Hon G. Fowlde eaid that the Department had grainted all the sums for which application had been made. "If we are going to classify the schools, there is only one possible basis, and that is the number of children, said the Minister of Edwoation. " We cannot classify them on the size of the building. The average attendance does not affect the teachers' salary, except in the lowest grade. In the other gradies it merely fixes the standard of the school. The difficulty of the salaries is associated with that of transfer, and as long as the transfers are in the hands of the Board, there will be difficulty. lam fully alive to the importance of securing some improvement if it can be got inside- the present system of local control. With a centralised system like that of Victoria it is a simple matter to transfer, and bo classify salaries." The leader of the Opposition, said that a very great mistake had been made wlien the building vote had been taken from the Boards of Education. The Boards had been in a much, better position to allocate the vote than was the Education Department. •

At 11 p.m.,, after the House had spent some eight hours discussing the Education Estimates, the member for Lyttelton was moved to protest. " Some scoundrel has said that the English House of Commons consisted of six hundred talking asses," he said. "I am beginning to think that there is a good deal of force in Carlyle's remarks. We have spent eight hours over these estimates, and what have we effected ? We have absolutely wasted the time of the countrj-. I admit the importance of the estimates, but ventilation of every little pettifogging grievance, by every person who has a grievance, is 6heer waste of time. The new Minister of Education had to get a little heckling, and he hae had it; still, the joke has gone far enough." The members who ad spent the evening discussing matters of pence were not discouraged. In the course of hi 6 remarks on the Education Estimates, the member for Lyttelton stated that during the past sixteen years the education vote had increased from £865,000 to £783,000 annually, while the cost per child had increased from £3 18s 3d to £6 10s 3d.