EDUCATION POLICY

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 996, 12 June 1930, Page 13

EDUCATION POLICY

REPORT NOW COMPLETED TEACHERS’ FEDERATION From Our Resident Reporter WELLINGTON? Today. Addressing the Council of Education yesterday, the Minister of Education, the Hon. H. Atmore. said that the Select Parliamentary Committee appointed to inquire into the Dominion's educational policy had completed its work. He could not discuss the contents of the report because the order of reference had laid it down that it must first be presented to the House. The Minister said he was glad to see that the teachers had decided to federate. This was a forward step. There was always a danger, where there were separate bodies, for vested interests to work to the detriment of the whole system. He considered that the policy of unification could be carried further. In his own district thev had a college board of governors, a technical school board and an education board. He thought the work could be carried out by one body. Each of these bodies had separate staffs, and these increased the cost of education in the district. In his opinion the old grammar type of school was doomed. Every day there was a greater demand for a more practical system, and the technical schools, which had at one time been looked upon as the poor relatives—the Cinderellas—of the high schools, wore now their serious rivals. He was determined to stamp out any class distinction in the educational system. In some places the boys and girls attending the technical schools were still looked upon as social inferiors by those attending the old grammar type of school, but this was dying as the result of the greater demand for practical training.