PAYING THE PIPER.

Waipawa Mail, Volume LIII, Issue 149, 12 September 1932, Page 1

PAYING THE PIPER.

AND CALLING THE TUNE. POWERS OF EDUCATION MINISTER. The concentration of power in the hands of the Minister of Education and the officers of the Education Department was condemned by the president of the Technical Education Association of New Zealand (Mr J. H. Reed) when speaking at the annual conference of the association in AYellington, “In recent years,” said Mr Reed, “local governing bodies in education have noted with misgiving the tendency to concentrate power in the hands of the Minister and the officers of the Department. This was the very definite aim shown in the evidence of the Department to the ‘Atmore’ Commission and in the recommendation (no doubt similarly inspired) of the Economy Committee. It came as a distinct shock to boards to have the Emergency Finance Act (No. 2) of 1931 used as a means of securing for the Minister the right to amalgamate the post-primary schools of any district by Order-in-Council—and this without any consultation with boards or any testing of local feeling. We understand that the justification urged for the centralisation of power at headquarters is that since the Minister and the Department have to pay the piper they should also call the tune; in other words, that since the Government is responsible for the raising and expenditure of educational funds it should be responsible in detail for the policy and control of the system. I feel, however, that

I am expressing the feelings of this conference when I say that the taxpayers of New Zealand would still rather entrust the management of the schools of a district to a locally elected board or boards than to the paid officials at headquarters under the Minister of the day. Further than that, I am satisfied that the general public have no implicit trust in the assurances of greater economy in a centralised or departmentalised system. It would appear that there is a real need for the Department and local boards to rise above feelings of rivalry and to co-operate heartily in working out the system that will be most efficient from the point of view of the schools and the pupils.” Mr H. S. W. King (Auckland) said there were many lay members of the conference—and he was one of them —who felt they could not continue to serve on boards if the powers of members were to be taken away. The conference ought to make it plain that it objected very strongly to government by Order-in-Council.