EDUCATION CONTROL

Hokitika Guardian, 29 September 1927, Page 1

EDUCATION CONTROL

(“ Auckland Star.”) The Canterbury Education Board has a grievance against the Education Bepartment which is ol more than local interest. In a recent issue ol the “ Education Gazette ” the Bepartment accused a member of the Board of being responsible for a misleading statement about the size of classes in primary schools. It lias been pointed out that the statement in question was made by an ex-teacher, and not by any official or member of the Board, and the Bepartment was charged at the meeting with using this mis-state-ment to attack the Board. Annoyed by tbis incident, members of tile Board assailed the whole policy of the Bepartment in respect to Boards.

It is a matter of public interest to the whole Bominion that there should he close and sympathetic co-operation between the Education Bepartment and the various local Boards. One member of the Canterbury Board says bluntly that the Bepartment has been laying itself out to have the Boards abolished, and another that for some years the Bepartment has been working to get sole control of education in Wellington. These statements are made hv men who. as members of a i,oard, have exceptional opportunities m bulging the Bcpnrtment’s policy. Whatever that policy may he exactly to-day, after the recent vigorous defence of the Boards, those members arc convinced that the Bopartinnet has tried to cripple or destroy these local institutions.

It thus becomes clear that the conflict now in progress, or that lias been in progress, between the Education Bepartment and the Boards involves the whole difference between central and local control ; and our readers do not need to he told that tte aio emphatically on the side of local selfgovernment in educational affairs. Bureaucratic inefficiency and the impossibility of guaranteeing that capable departmental officers shall also be practical business men, are two important reasons for the failure of the centralisation system. The Boards have, as a rule, accepted tamely the demands of the Bepartment, instead of resisting where they felt that an important principle was involved. As was shown in an interesting article contributed to our Thursday’s issue, the British Education Boards secured their own dignity and independence only by resolutely resisting the aggressive policy of the Central Government, and our Boards might well take this lesson to heart. The decision of the Canterbury Board to examine the regulations and to inquire into the recent Departmental encroachments upon its privileges and powers seems to us clearly a step in the right direction,