THE EDUCATION SYSTEM

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10062, 26 January 1911, Page 1

THE EDUCATION SYSTEM

COMPARISON WITH NEW SOUTH

WALES. [From Our Correspondent.] WELLINGTON, January 25. When Mr Beeby, Minister of Education in the New South AVales Cabinet, was visiting New Zealand recently, he took the opportunity of making some inquiry into the working of, the dominion system of education. He has now returned to Sydney, and on being interviewed there said that although New Zealand spends more per head than New South Wales on education he doubted whether the results are so good. A want of uniformity in the methods in different districts had impressed itself on his notice, also a tendency to etagnation and no wide interchange of teaohers or ideas. These remarks were brought under the notice of the Hon G-. Fowlds, Minister of Education, by a reporter to-day. The Minister has only just 'retirrned from' his South African trip, and spent a little time in Sydney on the way back. "I can quite understand Mr Beeby getting his impression about want of uniformity in the methods used in the different education districts," said Mr Fowlds, " because of the centralisation system in vogue in New South Wales as compared with our system of control by the Education Boards. Every educationalist that I have met who knows anything about our system' is surprised to find that the inspectors aro servants of the Education Boards instead of the central department. Everyone of them points to this as the greatest weakness in the educational system of Now Zealand." " However, in spite of this," declared the Minister. " I am not sure that we are hot getting quite as good results as in any other country. Of ono thing I am quite certain, and that is that our whole educational system from the kindergarten to the university is bettor correlated than in any country I know anything about. While in New South Wales I had occasion to ask a young man who was in charge of a steam launch the name of the river that wo were on, and when I could not understand his pronunciation and had to ask him to spell the name he calmly confessed that he could not do it. I do not think you could have such an experience as that in. New Zealand."

The Education Department in New South "Wales has a distinct advantage over the department in Now Zealand, Mr Fowlds wont on to say, in its comparative freedom in trying new experiments. For example, one, thins; in which he ivas very much interested was a system of country camps which they had. instituted l over there. They took children from the town schools in paj ties out to camp in the country districts for two or three weeks for the purpose of studying some particular phase of rural life and education. " I was told," said Mr Fowlds, "that the department could trace from these camps quite a number of cases where town hoys had decided to take up farming as the occupation of their life. Such an experiment would be difficult to carry out with so many Education Boards and authorities as we hare in New Zealand. No, generally speaking, I am very well satisfied with the way our system is working out in comparison with those of other countries.