EDUCATION POLICY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22985, 14 September 1936, Page 6

EDUCATION POLICY

THE GOVERNMENT’S RECORD OUTLINED BY MINISTER MUCH MORE TO BE DONE (Special to Daily Times) AUCKLAND, Sept. 13. “ We are not boastful about what we have done for education, because it is small compared with what remains to be done,” said the Minister of Education (Mr P. Fraser) in an address at Ellerslie. Speaking of the readmission of five year olds to the primary schools, Mr Fraser said that Labour had not lost a day in rectifying what the late Government had done. The Minister condemned the closing of the training colleges during the depression, and said that 1187 students were now being trained in them to overtake the shortage of teachers. When that had been accomplished other problems would remain, such as over-large classes and congested floor space in particular. There was no lack of money, but the difficulty would be to get the work done. It would take millions of pounds and a great deal of organisation, especially while the Government was undertaking a large housing programme, and the erection of public buildings required. The best school buildings to-day were those of the Canterbury openair type, but there also were some very bad schools in Canterbury and very bad teachers. There v/as also bad houses all over the Dominion. He had heard of one in which a baby and its cot had disappeared through the collapse of the floor. Another had its bathroom outside, five or six yards from the back door. The Government was pushing on with the related policies of consolidating country schools and providing for the conveyance of children, continued the Minister. Forty new conveyance services had been instituted, six new school buses had been built by the Railways Department, and six more were under construction. All possible use was being made of the railways, but the Government was determined to extend the benefits of modern primary education and postprimary education to children who lived away from the railway lines, This would be increased later. Help in the purchase of books was being made available to secondary and technical pupils. The largest recorded vote for school buildings had been placed on the Estimates, and it had been decided to make grants for extensions to the science buildings at the Auckland University College, the Medical School at Otago University, and the Biological Department at Victoria College. “ The tyranny of proficiency and matriculation examinations will be considered in co-operation with edu : canonists” added Mr Fraser. “We intend to make the road from the kindergarten to the university open to the child who wants to take it. We have done more in all directions than was ever done before, and that is not the end. It is not too much to say that a new vision has been brought into education.”