CHANGES NEEDED

Hokitika Guardian, 16 June 1932, Page 6

CHANGES NEEDED

IN N.Z. EDUCATION SYSTEM OUTLINED Lx HEADMASTER. CHRISTCHURCH, June 14. There would be many aim orascic changes in New /maiaim s educational ou.acju ii -o r i' ■ ~• ue rjciiy, lieadhua&cer of tile Stest Ci,in>Ociiui\.ji Sciiool, and iormerly of rxokiciKa, wcie tuudciiiy to 00-onic amusy uu_u cuciutor oi urn country. 1 lie Christchurch Advriuising Ciiiii lias liistriuted a senes of lectures in which visiting speaKers deal witlt, their special suojeets iroin the sHti|fpoint : ‘MI, 1 "ere Dictator,'.’ and -atf jpib clunks luncheon yeserday Air do Berry spoKe lroni an educationist's point of veiw. The’ education system, the speaker uaidj was the greatest and most important of them all, but there would be some difficulties tlmt a dictator would find it hard to surmount. Lt was impossible, for one tiling, to gel a clean start. Education was so nuicji.il part of life that it was impossible to shut it off in one single compartment and deal with it as a unit. Tiigre were the people who were to he, educated, and the great profile ni ‘.of the environment in which they moved. Then there were the ideals ol th community.

The first thing the dictator would have to do would lie to create an environment favourable to education in its broader and loftier meaning. That -was needed in New Zealand most deplorably. However, it would not be a difficult thing. Education would have to lie advertised as was everything else.-: It would have to be shown that (.schooling was only a tiny part of education. Education was life. The business man was just as much an‘educator as the school teacher. *‘f would .start witii the education of the, parent,” said -Mr de Berry. ‘.‘Don’t you think, especially in these times, that everybody should work to provide a really educative atmosphere ? As business men you ask how much it would all cost, 1 tell you I don’t know. But 1 would not spend as hi licit'on war and preparation, 3 for war as I would on such truly constructive propositions. And I would give a value for the money spent of twenty ,shillings in the pound.

•5 mil ~am going to ask an impertinent question : How- many of you go along and- see the working of the schools? No one of you would let a stranger drive his ear thousands of miles all over the countryside, but many cf you trust , your children in the care of lilen-vou* have never met.”

Local control was quoted by Mr de Berry as one of the most necessary and important facors in an education system, and the quoted the methods in vogue in England. “Above all,’ the speaker continued “1" Wfidl’d care of those beautiful bodies which God has given them.; : 1 would' aim at the old Greek ideal of bodily perfection. The body i,s all-important.”

■'' Among the alterations . .-.that...... the. speaker would make (were ho dictator) would he the further development and subsidising of kindergartens and the increasing of the age for entering primary schools. . Technical education he would, bring closer to reality':' indeed the whole: schooling system needed to be more directly places . : it wap almost cloistered. He" wood drasically revise the secondary school,,system and formulate a different method of training teacher,-;, in which character and personality would he the.dominant requirements.