EDUCATION REFORMS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 640, 17 April 1929, Page 10

EDUCATION REFORMS

MINISTER HEARS TEACHERS’ VIEWS UNITY AND CONTINUITY Press Association WELLINGTON, Tuesday. Members of the executives of the various teachers’ organisations, primary and secondary, expressed their views on education methods to-day to the Minister of Education, the Hon. H. Atmore, who will shortly announce his intentions in regard to alterations to the education system. Speaking on behalf of the New Zealand Educational Institute, Mr. H. Parkinson said the one object considered by his executive was the best means of turning to account the latent stores of youthful ability and energy. The executive regarded unity, continuity and co-ordination as fundamental essentials. The institute had for many years suggested that the three existing systems of control should.be combined and that there should be in each locality a single controlling authority with power to co-ordinate all educational activities.

The important thing to be aimed at, said Mr. Parkinson, was that the pupil should go to the school where his appropriate course was followed, that the course should be fitted to the pupil —not the pupil to the course, as was the present practice. The present system did not allow of classification of either pupils or teachers. TRAINING IN CRAFTSMANSHIP On behalf of the Technical School Teachers’ Association, Mr. L. J. Wild said that in all districts where it could be made possible, as by consolidation, conveyance or otherwise, primary school pupils should graduate into post-primary schools after passing Standard IV, or on reaching the age of 12 years. Primary schools in other districts should carry pupils to Standard VII, as from 1930. Post-primary schools having accommodation available should receive as free pupils all pupils who had passed Standard V This step would enable a readjustment to take place gradually. The universal opinion was that during the early post-primary years the course should be general. His association maintained that training in craftsmanship was of the very highest value for adolescents and should occupy a much more important place in any general course. Training in mechanical arts and crafts, and in science related to agriculture, especially biological science, should also be accorded a much higher place than at present in post-primary schools. A NEW ZEALAND SYSTEM The Minister said he was satisfied that some alteration would have to be made. The time had arrived when there should be a distinct alteration in .poet-primary education. Unemploy-

ment was largely the result of their educative system. Whatever alteration was made, it was absolutely necessary, if they were to do away with unemployment, to restore the primary industries to a place of first consideration in the minds of all educationists. “To-day,” continued the Minister, “farming is the last on the list. Such a state of affairs is absurd in a country like New Zealand, where the towns are absolutely dependent upon the production of the country. After all. we must have a New Zealand system of education. We must have a system that will fit the boys and girls for the lives they will lead in our country.”