EDUCATION SYSTEM

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 73, Issue 449, 15 December 1930, Page 10

EDUCATION SYSTEM

RE-ORGANISATION PLANS Views of the institute The following letter has been forwarded to the Minister of Education by Mr H. A. Parkinson, secretary of the New Zealand Educational Institute: “I have the honour, by direction of the executive of the New r Zealand Educational Institute, to bring before your notice the views of the executive on certain recent developments in the direction of the re organisation of the education system. “The report on educational re-organ-isation brought down by the Parliamentary Committee made certain recommendations which have met with wide (though not universal') acceptance, and which arc still under discussion and appraisement. The committee, in the report asserts that some, of its recommendations. particularly in regard to administration, are in opposition to proposals that had been put forward by the department. Information gathered from various parts of the Dominion through the Press has led the executive to express to you its anxiety concerning the probable- result of certain recent activities of the Department. It has been given out 1o the public through the Press that the Department is considering the introduction of certain recommendations of the committee, where this can be done without the passing of legislation. It may be permitted to recall here that the chief recommendations of the committee were the recognition of the 11 plus pupils exploratory period and a system of unified control. What the department appears to be contmeplating is the passing over of the 11 plus pupils to the divided post-primary schools as at present existing and it is to draw attention to the evils that must necessarily follow’ such action that this letter is written. The evils may be enumerated as follows: A Rejected Proposal “It is clear that if the department'.' present proposals arc carried out. it will in effect bo tantamount to putting into operation the scheme that the Parliamentary Committee rejected. The director of Education had proposed (see page 40 of the report! a completely centralised scheme on the Australian model. The committee rejected this in favour of a scheme based upon local control of local affairs. The keynote of the committee’s proposals was unity of control under a single local authority. The proposals that the department now appears to be putting forward disregard unity of control, and threaten a serious reinforcement of the position of the existing divided authorities by adding to their sphere the pupils of the 11 plus period. This would be so great an addition to the vested interests of the bodies entrenched within these divisions that the establishment of unity would bp. seriously prejudiced; and as the divided bodies at present existing have few remaining powers, since practically all authority has been taken from them bv the Department, the. proposals now under review mean in effect nothing but an extension of the powers, already almost autocratic, of the department. This development was foreseen by the committee. Concerning it the committee said, on page 46 of its report:—‘With such a system of divided control the committee thought the articulation of the two stages of education. as well as the continual adjustment of difficulties arising from the joint occupancy of the 11 plus to 15 period would devolve upon the Central Department and this necessity it was anxious to obviate.’ It is obvious that the apparent policy of the department is inconsistent with the intentions of the committee since it disregards unity of control and will reduce the opportunity for classification of the 11 plus pupils and adjustment of staffs. One other feature which has alarmed the executive is the fact that communications. perhaps instructions, have been sent to Boards'under seal of confidence, with the result that decisions appear to have been reached on a very important public question without public discussion or information. It is therefore very important that no further steps in the direction contemplated by the department should he taken until the form that re-organisation is to take shall have been decided. Serious Consequences. “The serious consequences of persistence in the present course of the department are not difficult to foresee. The first that comes into view is. as has been pointed out in this letter, the final establishment beyond hope of reversal of the department’s policy of centralised control and the extinction of any hope of a restoration of local control, even though the form and semblance of local control may be retained. The second is the too-early division of pupils at the 11 plus period by the mere names secondary and technical, or, as proposed at Gisborne, by sex. This means the sacrificing of the chief benefits to be anticipated from the exploratory period, viz., the classification of pupils according to discovered aptitudes, the provision of parallel courses, and the efficient mobilisation of teaching power in any given area. The worst evils of the present system arise from the drafting of pupils into schools not suited to their needs, and the evils will bo perpetuated and multiplied if this drafting is done regardless of individual needs and aptitudes at the age of 11 plus instead of, as at present, at about fourteen. It cannot be doubted that, consciously or unconsciously, a bias will be imparted to these young pupils according to the school, academic or technical, to which they may have been drafted. It is only natural that the junior ranks of a school will be inclined towards the regions of study that predominate in the upper school, and the main purpose of the proposed re-organisation will be defeated. The one great hope of the re-organisation is the provision of the exploratory period coupled with the opportunity for classification according to aptitudes, and the realisation of this hope depends on the pupils being enrolled in large numbers under a single authority. On this point the evidence of Mr Garrard (page 15 of the report) is emphatic. He said: — (4) A large roll number allows for a division into classes of pupils of similar educational attainment. (5) Pupils progress at the speed at which they are individually capable. (6) A larger staff allows for sp n 'ia! ition of subjects. “These arc some of the. benefits that the reorganisation proposed in Ihe Atmore report foreshadows. They will be lost by the premature handing over of the pupils of the 11 plus period to the admittedly inefficient post-primary machinery at, present, in existence.

“Your attention, as Minister, is drawn to these tendencies of the de-