The Sun MONDAY, APRIL 30, 1925. MOSS-GROWN EDUCATION POLICY

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 341, 30 April 1928, Page 8

The Sun MONDAY, APRIL 30, 1925. MOSS-GROWN EDUCATION POLICY

A BLISTERING reason lias been given authoritatively for the extensive use of unauthorised text books in the State primary schools. They are being used, it is claimed, because the Education Department’s prescribed list is hopelessly obsolete, inadequate, uneconomical and more or less characteristically stupid. Many parents of school children will feel disposed to applaud the secretary of the New Zealand Educational Institute for his forthright exposure in a newspaper of the department’s laggard policy, AVith a scorn that indicates the temper of the teaching profession on the subject, Mr. H. A. Parkinson has asserted that the existing list of text books, as prescribed by the department, is not only obsolete to-day, but was moss-grown years ago. Who is responsible for this growth of departmental fungus ? Is the blame attributable to politicians who pretend to know everything about education, or to civil servants pretending a full knowledge of political administration? Someone in authority must assume responsibility for a policy that has been condemned as an extravagant backwardness, and if the real culprit be found he ought to be shaken out of his lethargic condition. Overburdened taxpayers—indeed, the public as a whole—have now reached the stage of exasperation when they would like to secure demonstrable proof that at least one department of State is a model of efficiency. It has become a sorry tale this everlasting cry either about some glaring sort of departmental futility or chronic lack of the spirit of progress. Postmen, telegraphists and the Police Force alone appeal’ to be able to do their work well and avoid the expensive necessity of still another commission of inquiry. There is really no excuse for the Education Department lagging years behind the times. It has had more than a generous share of the supreme wisdom of expert educationists and investigators from other countries; it has not been stinted, in the aggregate, for money; and its highest administration these days is supposed to be exceedingly competent. And yet, an authoritative official of the Educational Institute has not hesitated to flagellate the department for inability to keep marching with progress in so comparatively a routine duty as selecting the best text hooks for the primary schools. A few days ago an irate parent complained bitterly in our correspondence columns against the excessive homework that is now thrust upon children to the detriment of their health. It is probable that lie weakened his ease by overstatement. But thousands of parents would at least agree with the angry man that children are compelled to have two school days each day—one at school and the other at home. Some of the causes of all the overtime imposed by teachers even on bright, eager, competent pupils are revealed in Mr. Parkinson’s indictment of the Rip Van Winkles in the Education Department. Teachers and pupils, it appears, are compelled metaphorically to use hand winches while hydraulic cranes are available. In other words, “far too much of the teacher’s time, costing -1 10s to &2 a day, is taken up in doing work that could be far more effectively performed with the aid of an eighteen-penny manual. There is a plea for an investigation. A futile remedy : Why not actually use hand winehes to hoist sluggards out of departmental service? i