OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM.

Wairarapa Daily Times, 5 October 1926, Page 4

OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM.

Speaking at Masterton yesterday, the Minister' for Education (Hon. K. A. Wright) said that it had frequently been stated that the. Government was parsimonious in the manner in which it spent money on education. Mr Wrignt said that ho was not there to see a skin-flint policy carried out, but was concerned with spending the money wisely. Whoever holds' the view that the 'Government has been -mean in the matter of the money it has spent on education, cannot have a close knowledge of the real facts. The Government has been, on th«S contrary, most lavish in its expenditure on education, and Mr. Wright—reading between the lines of his Tccc'nt Speech—is aware of the need for curtailment in this direction. Judging by the remarks he let fall, in the course of an address down South a fc'w days ago, Mr. Wright is not keen on pushing forward with the Junior High School proposal, of which, he admits, practically nothing of value isf known. This is a direction in which the Government will doubtless reduce the education vote, in the future. There is a strenuous time ahead of the Dominion, and more than one Minister has recently broadly hinted that tht Government intends to cut its garments according to the cloth available. 'Government expenditure must be reduced during the next year or two, and our education system has reached a point, i n the matter of money spent upon it, that it may well suffer a reduction until times become more prosperous than thev arc at present.