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Hokitika Guardian, 24 March 1928, Page 2

Ten growing expenditure in 111icountry on education is a brunch of ihe administration cost.- which is causing a snort deal of alarm. The difficulty apjiears to be in calling a halt, and not in remodelling or revising the scholastic policy. It has expanded a I great speed and the outgoing is now so great as to cause feelings of serious concern. The Dunedin Star in reviewing the subject says we spend a great deal of money in New ZoalaniT on postprimary education, and it would la’ good to feel assurance that it i- all well spout. r I his is work, too. in which the new Department of Industrial Research might co-operate with the Education Department. Returning also to the question of unemployment ,wo are now surelv thoroughly awake fo the danger of having “the poor always with us” in the form of a constant percentage of unemployed. like the 20 per cent, surprisingly revealed in a cable from the I'nitc I States this week, and like the experience of Drear Rritain since the (•rent War. The deeper causes and less showy remedies must therefore he studied. One tactnr is undoubtedly this care to see that the growing hoy and girl find a suitable place in the complex of industrial life, and not merely a blind alley job. If this is ib ne and a close watch is kepi on immigration there are reasonable hopes that as tin’ years pa-s by there need be none unable to find work for their bands to do in the varied industries and or-eiipat ions of the country. I'n less the increasing cost of ethical inn is taken in hand determinedly the country 'till he lacing more acute linancial wines in other direi thins, the expenditure for education now being so large. Xor is the end in sight., for the »w Zealand Herald remark-: Many of the earning generation will face life, will approach the duties of citizenship, with no father systematic teaching than that received at the primary •■ehool. The proportion is not so high as it was a couple o| decades ago. but it is still eonsiderahie. Those who pass to a post-primary school, whatever its nature and aim. will have all that follows built as a superstructure on what was gained at the primary school. Much lias been said about the need to co-ordinate courses t i Hie end and that the change may he smoothly made .leaving as small a gap as possible to Ik- filled with nothing to be unlearned. Whichever way the pupil is to go subsequently, the importance «.>l thorough teaching in the primary school remains the same. Tt is true, its was suggested in "Wellington, that conceptions of education have broadened with the years. The need hir a good grounding in certain indispensible elements remains. The two must be reconciled if a satisfactory syllabus is to he the result.