EDUCATIONAL REFORM.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 1958, 29 March 1919, Page 4

EDUCATIONAL REFORM.

PROPOSALS OF THE NEW ZEALAND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTE.

The proposals for reform in the education system of New Zealand put forward hy the New Zeahmd Educational Institute at its last annual meeting closely concern the public; and it is well that the general body of the people should gel a clear grasp of what the proposals mcali. To do this it is first necessary to understand the principles on which they arc based. Briefly stated, they are:

1. The right of the individual to an opportunity to develop his powers for real living;

2. The necessity in the common interest of drawing out the best intellectual and moral capacities of; the people for their work in life; 3. The necessity of a high standard of education'for taking part in (he life of a free and self-governing people. 4. The right and duty of all to share in a function which is the concern of all.

Taking these principles as guides, the Institute’s proposals go down to bedrock. They assume that every child is equally entitled to the care of the State, and that in the interests of the community as well as of himself he must be educated to live the best kind of life of which ho is capable. The first essential for education as for living is soiled health; therefore the health of the young is to be the object of unremitting care. The infirm and feeble are a burden to themselves and the community, therefore they must be strengthened to the point of throwing off (heir infirmity and of resisting disease. Hence medical and dental inspection must be followed by medical and dental treatment; and both must be reinforced by sound teaching on health subjects, by reasonable regulation of employment, and hy provision for recreation.

Measure's havin'? been taken to secure sound pliy.-ieal health and growth, tiie health and growth of the mind must he adequately provided for. In the past education has been regarded as training for earning a living. It is more than that it is a training for living, I he schoolchildren of to-day arc the citizens and workers 01, to-morrow. They have md only to earn a living; they have to take an intelligent slmVe in governing the country they live in, and the kind of education lliov get will decide the kind of citizen's they will he. 'They have brains to lie educe,ted and characters to lie developed. Neither brains may characters can tie sufficiently trained by the fourteenth year, which is when most boys and girls leave school, lu nine cases out of ten it is in the years between the fourteenth and the eighteenth- or nineteenth that I he character receives its permanent bias and fakes on the qualities that will determine its nailin' for life. Therefore it is necessary that tin; period of training should be greatly extended. .I.lns js a reform that will not be realised to the full until the general public attainto a new point of view with regard to educational aims. Schools should not lie regarded as institutions for preparing young .people for money-making. Time and again the Institute lias laid it down that the vocational - aim. though' important, is not the most important; it should bo. delayed till the sixteenth year, or at least the fourteenth. Time and again it lias advocated training for the right use of leisure and for the duties of citizenship, as that is the only means by which an enlightened democracy can lu; built up and the industrial and civic peace of the nation maintained, lienee the proposal that the full school life should be expended to the sixteenth year and lust met ion by continual ion classes to (ho eighteenth. If that, is- more than parents can afford, the Stale must assist. The State cannot afford to let brains go untrained—they are too valuable to be wasted in that wav—neither can it afford lu trust its government to ‘‘halt-baked - citizens who have had since early youth to trust to chance for their education. There is no asset the country possesses that will pay so well for development as the brains and character of its young people. Education, like railway-building, should be carried on to the paying-point A bad mav leave school at fourteen, thinking he will be a carpenter or a lawyer. and be a failure; if be stays at school till he is sixteen he may find he was meant to be a farmer or a professor, ft be goes at fourteen into a “blind-alley" occupation he may becomc-t an idler and a thief; two more years a I school might have shown that lie was made for a business organiser or a scientific worker. The must important tiling in life is that each should got into the place where ho belongs, and it is only education that will give him the power to do it. As education is for the benelit of all, its administration is the interest of all. Hence it is proposed that the educational affairs of each locality shall be managed by the people of that locality—not by a Board centred many miles away. Each district should have its own Education Committee managing its own affairs. Over all, guiding and directing, should lie a National Education Board. The Board should lay down the general lines that are to he followed, and should provide the teaching staff aud the funds; but the local administration should be in the hands of the people themselves. In this way the parents of the pupils would be given a share in the moulding and fostering of the education of their young people, and the

school would become what it should be —the centre and rallying-plaee of the social life of each community. At present the school is a place where the children assemble for some half-dozen hours a day, and its precincts are closed at all other times. The school should he the intellectual and social meeting-ground of the locality. It should supply the place of assembly for lectures and concerts, for meetings and clubs, and should supply means for recreation for young people of postschool age. There has been a great awakening in recent years to the value of human life. Much care is taken to preserve the lives of children. Care must also be taken that those lives must be given the chance to come to full fruition, and that is what education means. This requires a much wider and deeper education than has been given in the past; the diliciencies of the past must be made good in the future.