EDUCATIONAL NOTES

Waikato Times, Volume 100, Issue 16712, 30 January 1926, Page 11 (Supplement)

EDUCATIONAL NOTES

COST IN BRITAIN.

(By "Dominie.")

Mr 11. J. Jackson, hon. general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, in a statement, dealt with the issue of Circular 1311 by the British Board of Education, which, he says, indicates that a very serious attempt is to be made once more to effect reductions in the cost of education. It is urged in some quarters, Mr Jackson continues, that the percentage grant system, introduced by Mr Fisher to stimulate educational development, has led to rather reckless expenditure. The Board's figures do not justify this assumption, as the following estimates of expenditure show:—l922-23, £45,275,000; 192324, £41,934,047; 1924-25,' £41,900,000; 1925-26, £40,044,054; 1920-27, £41,781,414. In April, 1924, the Board announced that it had found it possible to remove many of the limitations upon educational developments and that it was prepared to consider proposals for expansion on their merits. In January of the present year the Board issued Circular 1350, in which it stated that in future the Board would find it difficult to approve any scheme of school planning which failed to make provision for advanced instruction of children over 11 years. Education Committees have, therefore, proceeded with schemes of development. New schools, both secondary and elementary, necessary through previous restrictions, are being .planned and built, insanitary and defective premises, condemned by the Board' as a result of their recent survey, are being improved, the problem of special schools for the blind, deaf, crippled, and mentally defective is receiving that further attention it deserves ,and modifications in the primary school system to provide for more adequate education' of the older boys and girls are being carried out throughout the length and breadth of the country at the direct behest of the Board of Education. No wonder the Board's circular creates much indignation. The Education Committees of the country are faced with a serious position. They will receive, instead of a percentage grant,, for elementary education, a block grant equivalent to the grant payable for 1924-25, less 1 per cent., or in figures £40,000,000, less £400,000, with a further reduction of 30s for each child on the registers on March 31 last, producing a further decrease of £247,000, making a total reduction of £047,0001 The reduction of grant on children under five will throw the cost of accommodating such children on the local rates. The circular will effectively dam all the streams of progress in education. School building will stop, advanced instruction will bo checked, the hope of smaller classes will be deferred—for smaller classes mean more teachers —and the scho6l social services will be restricted-. There can be no advance, for all expenditure above the block grant must fall on the locality, despite the fact that education is largely a national responsibility. In the race for industrial and commercial supremacy, Mr Jackson adds, victory must be the portion of the highly developed nation, to a people possessing initiative, intelligence, adaptability, organising power and the means for scientific research. But education must be regarded from another standpoint. Ignorance is the progenitor of anarchy. The primary school is the working lads' university. In addition to making him a real asset to an industrial community, he must he led to appreciate the true enjoyments of hours of leisure, for the true greatness of a nation depends not only on industrial and commercial, prosperity, but upon its moral integrity, its (appreciation of literature and art and a high standard of culture.

BOYS AND MATHEMATICS.

The annual report of the Hull Grammar School states that among the boys of 20 years ago we,re better mathematicians* than they had now. An educationist said to a reporter: "Boys of the last generation had not the distractions of pictures and wireless, and thus concentration was easier." Dr. Chilton, headmaster of the City of London School, said: "While we have one or two outstanding examples of mathematical brilliance which would equal in call respects the extraordinaryrecords of the boys of 20 years ago, the average standard is slightly lower." The headmaster of the Merchant Taylors' School said: "On the whole out experience is similar. We have a few boys who are really gifted in mathematics. They come very spasmodically and, I should think, less frequently Those who are gifted are really as clever as those of 20 years ago. The curriculum of the modern school is wider in scope and there are more subjects taught, with, a consequent spreading of interest. There is also a tendency to discourage specialisation."