EDUCATION IN N.Z.

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22513, 22 September 1938, Page 4

EDUCATION IN N.Z.

REVIEW BY FEDERATION PRESIDENT

SCHOOL COMMITTEES* POWERS “WHITTLED AWAY”

Enthusiastic approval greeted the presidential address of Mr R. S. H. Buchanan to the conference of the Federation of School Committees’ Associations last evening. Many delegates praised the speaker for his survey of the work done in New Zealand education.

“School committees were originally meant to hold an unimportant place when education affairs’ were organised in 1877,” said Mr Buchanan. “They had considerable powers, but were under the Education Boards, and m earlier times the relations between the department and the boards were not harmonious, and just as the department was to the boards, so were boards, generally, to the committees. Actually the boards were the first exponents of centralisation. As the years went by the powers of the committees were whittled down till now there is almost nothing left to whittle.” But the value of the school committees is intrinsic, and would be realised if all school committees gave themselves, for a few months. the Semple-esque order of the running shoe.

“It is regrettable that only a very small section of the adult population of the country realises the administrative value - of committees or takes even a meagre interest in education, at least where it concerns primary schools.” Opposition to Committees

Mr Buchanan protested against the attitude which committees sometimes met during their efforts to raise funds for the No. 2 accounts. Their work created active interest in the school and helped to form contacts between teachers and . parents. New educationists postulated that a school should be the centre of the communal life round it and one method of forming contacts, yet many committees had been told that the arranging of even one school concert would disrupt the work of the curriculum. “This attitude of headmasters is greatly discouraging,” he said. “Education is still dominated by the examination outlook, and the interest of parents, such as exists, centres on that."