The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1887. EDUCATION ESTIMATES.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1721, 21 December 1887, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1887. EDUCATION ESTIMATES.

An interesting debate took place m Committee of Supply on the Education vote on Tuesday. The amount put down on the estimates for Education is a much lower sum than has been previous by voted for this purpose. The Hon. the Minister for Education explained that the Government proposed to effect a saving of from .£57,000 to £61,000 m the department m the following manner: — By raising the school age to six, £26,000 to £30,000, by reducing by four shillings the capitation at present paid, £15,000; k by substituting a strict average attendance for the working average, £8000 j and by the abolition of training teachers, £8000. A great j deversity of opinion seems to prevail | m the House and when the House resumed after the luncheon adjournment, I the Hon, Mr Fisher said that a communication had been received by Govern- i ment from members of both sides of the House, to the effect that if the Government did not press the question of raising the school age, they would j not oppose the other proposals of the Government with regard to the education expenditure, and intimated that the Government were willing to accept the ofter and abandon the raising of the school age. Now to ' our mind the proposal which the Government professes its willingness to abandon, the raising of she school age is about the most satisfactory one of 1 the lot. We do not believe m children ' being sent to school at an age when . they had better be laying m a stock of [ health. We decidedly object to State schools being converted into State » nurseries, and as the Government has • undertaken to provide a scheme which I will prevent the necessity for closing : country schools, we sincereiy hope this proposal will be agreed to. We also- > favour that for substituting a strict average attendance for the working average, but we cannot see why the ; Government should mulct teachears so k hea\'ily m the matter of capitation. Why should they be singled out for I special reduction of salary and the Civil Servants get off scott free ? We do not see the fairness — and that is what an englishman loses — of the proposal. We do not regard with favor ) the proposal to do away with the , Normal Schools. Such a step we look , upon as a retrograsle one, and one that 1 is calculated to deteriorate the useful--1 ness of teaehere. A very large number 1 of the teachers at present engaged m the State Schools have been trained m I the Normal School, and if these be ■ abolished we fail to be how the present ; standard of efficiency on the part of 1 teachers is to be secured. We think it would have been a far more judicious I course to have proposed that fees i should be paid by pupils who have passed the Fourth, or at any rate, the Fifth Standard, than that the training system should be abolished.