EDUCATION DISTRICTS BOUNDARIES

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2478, 3 June 1915, Page 9

EDUCATION DISTRICTS BOUNDARIES

BIG DISTRICTS SCHEME

CASES FOR AND AGAINST

OPINIONS OF DR. ANDERSON

The Education Boundaries' Commission sat again yesterday morning to hear evidence. Mr. A. 1). Thomson, presided. Mr. A. H. Parkinson, headmaster of the Newtown School and secretary of the New Zealand Educational Institute, read, the following statement on behalf of the institute. "The institute has for many years been urging the reduction of the number of education districts to four, corresponding with the four university and training college districts. The Education Commission of 1912 recommended five, but as the Act limits the number to seven, eight, or nine, our remarks will have reference only to those numbers. As Large As Possible. "The institute strongly urges upon your Commission that the number of districts should be seven, rather than either of the larger numbers. In support of this we will point out that education is a national concern of the very highest importance. , Under the present division into small districts the national aspect is to a large extent obscured, and just in proportion as the number of districts is reduced opportunity will be given for its emergence, and K»r the due appreciation of its importance. While the existing system haj on the one hand obftcutbd th& national view of education, it has to a large extent failed to elicit the local interest and enthusiasm that should be in evidence in the working of a national system. The institute believes that while the widening of district boundaries -will on the one hand lead to wider views on the real scope of education, it will also oil the other, bj throwing more responsibility oh local communities, call forth a. more active and intelligent interest in the educational institutions with which each community is concerned. . . . Evils of Small □ istricts. "In support of this general principle, we beg to submit the following facta:— Th» Auckland district is the largest in the Dominion, and while there is no evidence that that district is in any way inferior in education to other districts, there is evidence that the system works more satisfactorily there, and this as a direct result of the greater size of the district. The' institute does not by any means claim that the interests of education should be in any way subordinated to the interests of teachers, but it does claim that t.he two interests are in most respects collateral. Education sudors in small districts because teachers of the more promising quality are disinclined to take service iu them for fear of losing their prospect of promotion, while even in some larger districts dissatisfaction arises and injustice is suffered from the impossibility of finding means of suitably adjusting the teaching staff. Quite recently four teachers in the North Canterbury district have been subjected to reduction in salary through falling attendance—an injustice they would not have suffered had the district been large enough to afford greater opportunities of transfer. Financial considerations are also important. . . . Besides tho direct saving of expense on ofiice staffs, in a large district more efficient and more economical arrangement for the supply of 6chool equipment could be made than is possible in a small district, and obviously the ration of expense must decrease ss the size of the district increases. . . . Difficulties of Transfer, la reply to questions Mr. Parkinson said that he hoped that the introduction of the Dominion grading system would make it easier for teachers to transfer from one district to another, but 'he foared that the enlargement of districts might increase difficulties now met with by teachers in obtaining transfers from--one district to another. Ono of those difficulties was that teacher could not know when to apply for vacancies occurring in other districts, and this trouble would certainly be accentuated by the reduction of the number, aud the increase in the area, of education districts. Vacancies were not even uow advertised outside. of the boundaries of the district where they occurred. A monthly Gazette for tho advertisement of vacancies would not get over the difficulty of advising teachers of vacancies, because boards did not all deal with vacancicc at the same periods of the month. The Great. Principles. Dr. William John Anderson, Director of Education, said that hia general attitude towards the questions before tho Commission, was a strong belief that tho local administration should be preserved, and that the districts should be of such a size as to enable the boards to do the work of administration efficiently, Districts should be large enough to ensure hound and workable finance. In this respect the present division of districts was a conspicuous failure. Honeys were distributed to the boards on the assumption that certain percentages of the funds were to be devoted to certain purposes, but in some of the small districts the board s incomes were so small as to preclude the possibility of the scheme being fully curried out. For instance, the building funds of certain districts were so small that the building of a single new tscnool of even moderate size would dig. organise their finances. Promotion Problem, From the point of view of teachers and. teaching, it was highly important that districts should bo large enough to enable boards to transfer teachers freely irom one school to another within their own boundaries. It was of great importance that every district should contain a large number of schools of an. average attendance of from 35 to 120. These schools would satisfy the aspirations of a very large proportion of teachers. It was of much more importance that a distnct should coutain a' 1 largo number of such schools, than a relatively large number of the highest type of schools, because teachers competing for these higher posts were such men as would be known, and could more easily get transfers from district to district without great difficulty. Must Not Be Unwieldy. But the districts should not be so large as to preclude the possibility of efficient administration by the boar Us. There was it danger that districts might be made so large as to make it impossible for members of boards to know anything of the district they were administering. In such a case the administration would bo actually done not by tho boards, but by officials, the boards' secretaries or chief inspectors. It might possibly make a serious difference in the relations between boards and school committees. His own opinion was that the principles he had enunciated could be best secured in practice by the division of Now Zealand into nine rattier than into seven districts. Districts should be large enough to be, from the point of view of administration, complete units. Tho board centres should be the centres of medical inspection, for instance. There should be a medical inspector for each district, aud a staff of sight or nine medical inspectors with a chief inspector would be largo enough for the needs of New Zealand. Likewise, tho centre of the district should bo the centro of physical education, and the district should therefore lie large enough to onable it to employ one if not two physical instructors. It should be largo enough to have a sufficient income to employ an efficient director of technical education. It should be large enough to have a group of four or fivo inspectors, including a senior inspector. But it should not lie .<0 large ns to make the senior inspector not an inspector at all. but rather the general adviser and factotum of the board. 1 lie should do inspections, in part of hin time, and should not bo merely a supervisor and an adviser. It was essential to the proper discharge of hi? duties'that ho should remain in close touch with tho teachers in their schools, and this end he eould not attain unless he did a substantial amount of inspection. Also the 'listrict, should not b» too largo to prevent tho oeuior iuscector from kuowinjt

something about almost every toaclier within hia boundaries. Ho should know directly a very large percentage of his teachers. He should knovr enough about them to be able to advise the board upon the relative merits of any of them out of hia own personal knowledge, and not out of reliance on any graded 6chemo. Grading Scheme. The chiof value of a grading scheme iva» that it would summarise the collected opinions of all inspectors in a district, but he did not believe that there should be any slavish adherents to any graded aoheme in making appointments. Such adherence would throw away all the advantages to be gained by the personal knowledge of the applicants, and their suitability for the positions for which they happened to be applying. A grading scheme however, perfect, could never be so minute in its differentiation a« the system by which the chief inspectors advised jo suoi;«ogti«ufj eq} o; e* spjwiq teachers. He did not believe that any grading system should evor entirely supoiscde the recommendations of inspectors based on personal knowledge of teachers. Nine Districts. Dr. Anderson was examined, at great length on the areas which he thought should be included in the proposed enlarged districts. He admitted that he had not carefully considered all the factors to be taken into consideration, but his opinion. was that the districts should be Auckland, Waikato, Taranaki, and Wangnnui, Hawke's Bay, Wellington, and Marlborough, Nelson, Westland, and Grey, Canterbury (North and South), Otago, Southland—nine districts in all.