EDUCATIONAL.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 3761, 1 March 1928, Page 3

EDUCATIONAL.

CONFERENCE OF SCHOOL INSPECTORS.

Wellington, Tuesday. The Conference of primary school inspectors this morning was addressed by the Hon. R. A. Wright, Minister of Education, and Mr. T. B. Strong, Director of Education. After stating the principal business of the Conference the Minister said that the 1919 syllabus had outlived its usefulness. Since that year considerable changes had occurred in the educational outlook. There was the junior high school movement, vocational guidance, the problem of the retardate child and closer acquaintance with the processes of the child mind through scientific research. New methods of instruction had therefore become necessary.

The purpose of education was to equip a child mentally, morally and physically for the work of life. In bringing our syllabus more into line with the present ideas and recent developments it appeared therefore desirable to have the opinion of the ordinary business man to ascertain as far as possible his views upon what should be included to form a balanced ration of education.

For this reason a committee had submitted the result of its'deliberations which should now be considered in the light of inspectors’ and professional experience. “It has been suggested by some,” said Mr. Strong, “that there exists a marked gap between primary and secondary school courses of instruction and that the primary school system should be remodelled on the lines of the American junior high school to bridge the gap. “Others suggest that any gap that exists is due to the secondary schools not to the primary schools. It is alleged that standard six pupils taught by the strongest and most experienced teachers in the primary schools pass into the hands of junior, tjntried, and often untrained teachers of the secondary schools.

It must be our care to devise a system that will give teachers the fullest freedom and incentive to realise the highest ideal in education—namely the training of boys and girls to become worthy citizens of a great Empire. Character foi> ming must be our first aim, but at the same time we must not ignore, the need there is for well informed citizens. We must guard against the tendency to allow a cloistered type of education to develop out of touch with the world of action. The Conference then went into committee to consider the new syllabus and committees were set up to report on different branches of the proposed curriculum.