CENTENNIAL CONTEST FOR SCHOOLS

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 151, 22 March 1939, Page 12

CENTENNIAL CONTEST FOR SCHOOLS

£2OO In Prizes For Best Regional Surveys GOVERNMENT DECISION As part of the centennial celebrations the Government lias set aside £2OO for a competition for which all schools throughout the Dominion are eligible to compete, reports the '■Centennial News.” After consultation between members of the centennial branch of the Department of Internal Affairs and the Education Department it was decided that the competition should be for regional surveys and that schools, not individuals, should compete. Prizes will be awarded to schools, and pupils who have collaborated in producing a survey will have the satisfaction of sharing a prize which they will have collectively won for their school.

The schools of -the Dominion have been divided into seven classes and sections, according to size and type, for the purpose of the contest. Technical and secondary schools form one class, Native schools another. The secondary departments of district high schools are divided into two sections, primary and intermediate schools into three, thus'ensuring that all schools compete with other schools of a comparable type and size. But in practice there is nothing to prevent the best work being done by the smallest country school, as success in producing regional surveys for this competition will depend not so much on the equipment and facilities available as on the scope and intellectual timbre of the whole conception. Part Played by Teachers. Though teachers are expressly barred by the rules of the competition from preparing the regional surveys entered fu the competition by their schools, they may quite properly serve ou the editorial committee overseeing the collection and presentation of data for a survey and their guidance may often be a decisive factor.

The rules of the competition have been framed to give as free a choice as possible to schools in the choice of a subject for a regional survey. A school might choose the whole history of a district, though such a wide attack might prove unwise. It might equally weH choose to write a survey of the present condition of an important local industry. Not Necessarily Historic. Though inevitably most surveys will begin with or incorporate an historical outline, there is no express obligation on schools entering for the competition to write historical surveys. Surveys may place their emphasis on present-day trends or on past episodes at the discretion of the school concerned. The present, after all. alone gives value to the past. The surveys may be embellished with paintings, dra_wings, photographs, graphs, diagrams, or anything that the entering school considers relevant. Presentation of entries will be taken into account by the judges.