CHEAPER TEXT-BOOKS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 525, 30 November 1928, Page 16

CHEAPER TEXT-BOOKS

REVISED SYLLABUS FOR PRIMARY SCHOOLS MORE FREEDOM FOR TEACHERS (From Our Resident Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Thursday. AH primary State schools will start off next year with the new syllabus and new text-books. The latter will be substantially reduced in price. The Minister of Education, the Hon. R. A. Wright, made an announcement to the above effect to-day. ’The final draft of the syllabus, with explanatory appendices, he said, was in the hands of the printer, and would be issued before the end of the year. The suggestions made by the syllabus revision committee, said the Minister, had been of considerable assistance to the department, and he also desired to acknowledge the valuable work done by a special committee set-up by the New Zealand Educational Institute. Mr. Wright stated that a comparison with previous syllabuses would show that never before had so much assistance been given to teachers or so much freedom offered them. The methods of teaching described and advocated by the inspectors were intended to be merely suggestive and no teacher need adopt them unless he was convinced that he could put them to profitable

The Minister thought that teachers would value the measure of freedom offered them and he felt sure that they would use it wisely and to the benefit of their pupils. With regard to the new primary school the Minister stated that he had been able, with the assistance of the Master Printers’ Association, to effect a substantial reduction in the price of text-books based on those formerly in use. As the new books had been written in accordance with the more modern methods of teaching, they were somewhat larger than the books they replaced and the prices had to be fixed accordingly. The Minister said that in order to reduce the cost to parents he had directed that only one book should be authorised for use in each of the subjects, English, - arithmetic, history and geography. All reading books in the standard classes would be free. The only readers that parents would be required to buy were the books in the preparatory classes.