EDUCATIONAL CHANGES

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 849, 18 December 1929, Page 12

EDUCATIONAL CHANGES

NEED FOR NEW SYSTEMS “TOO MUCH SCRAPPINESS” •'The end of a school year is a good j time for looking back and thinking j over educational matters. No school can* remain at a standstill —changes are continually taking place in the scholastic world.*’ said Miss Ij. Clouston, headmistress of St. Cuthbcrt’s College, in her annual report, presented at the prizegiving ceremony yesterday. "There have been revolutions in teaching methods, even since the parents of our present pupils were at school.” she said. “Today, the relations between teachers and pupils are closer and happier; there is a freedom of expression which was discouraged a generation ago. The children are. in a general way, much better informed, though whether they know more things well is a debatable point. We constantly hear that the curse of modern education is its scrappiness; and I think a school should set out to give a good grounding in the essential subjects, including those which will train the mind to be methodical and accurate, and those which will develop the artistic and imaginative faculties. "The chief educational change in Xew Zealand, or the one which is exciting much comment, is the accrediting system—a system which will make it easier for the examiners by lessening the number of papers to be corrected, and for the good pupils by removing the strain of an examination, but will not ease the burden of the average child, who will still have to undergo an outside test. Though examinations are far from perfect, at present there seems no better system. For an examination is good for the pupils who wish to go on to a university and for schools who have then an outsido standard. What is needed is a school leaving examination with a very wide range of subjects, which will be more suitable to the majority of I understand that there arc possibilities of this eventuating shortly.”