NOTES AND COMMENTS

Putaruru Press, Volume VI, Issue 255, 27 September 1928, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS

THE EDUCATION SYSTEM. Observations made recently in the ' press, long overdue as they may be, in that the anomalies they mention to many thousands of taxpayers have beeni painfully - obvious for many years, are nevertheless not untimely just' Mow, writes . a correspondent. in the .Wellington Post, As the writer, points out, one of the most glaring faults with which our education system abounds is the admission into secondary schools of any and every , comparative dullard, who seeks same, instead of making a judicious selection, based on a more rigorous proficiency test. The present proficiency examinations, as is well known even by those who conduct them, are a farce, and in the main but a prelude to the cramming of the high schools with pupils, who could be better catered fdr by extended tuition in the primary. Sir James Parr when Education Minister spent a lot of our money in engaging consulting experts, and eventually led us to expect, and a few of the more credulous to believe, that he had at last fashioned for us a perfect system, unapproached and unapproachable by any other country in the world. It is positively distressing to observe the degree of domination the Teachers’ Institute, whose very raison d’etre, like that of every other trade union, is higher salaries, is permitted to exercise in the evolution of our education system, and -our present Minister, from whom we expected so much, seems much too prone to be guided in his course of action by the institute, instead of relying more on his director and other disinterested advisers. He seems scarcely to know where he is, and beyond iterating that a thorough overhaul of the perfect, infallible, and immaculate system of Mr. Parr’s is necessary

and imminent, nothing but the perpetuation of a waste of money is being achieved. With all our boasting and squander, on frills and fripperies, it is debatable whether the product of our schools —high schools thrown in— is superior to that of the English elementarv school, even of thirty years ago, and it may safely be concluded that a system satisfactory to the taxpayers will never be established so long as the N.Z.E.I. is permitted its present latitude in dictation, or while that body makes £.s.d. the principal plank of its platform.