THE EDUCATION CONFERENCE.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVI, Issue 43095, 21 May 1907, Page 4

THE EDUCATION CONFERENCE.

In preparation for the Imperial Conference on Education which is to be held in London this month, the League of the Empire has submitted a series of questions to the educational authorities of the various colonies. The answers as they come in have been printed, summarised and indexed and there will thus be before the Conference when it meets a fairly complete conspectus of the conditions of education throughout the Eimpirc. The questions submitted to each colony were fifty’ in number, and w©redesigned to discover the condition? governing primary and secondary education, religious, civic and, moral instruction, the status and prospects of teachers, the -action of colonial Governments with regard to schoolbooks, and so forth. . Probably nosingle person in the Empire knows the conditions of elementary education and the provision for the supply and training of teachers in more than a small number of the colonies, and! a. private inquirer could not hope to cover the ground so comprehensively as the League of the Empire has done. In. relation to the Colonial Education Departments, we are told, the League now holds a recognised position. Its proposal to- issue a graded series of text-books on the Empire for use in schools has led to committees •being appointed by most of the colonial Governments and Education Departments,, and there thus exists at the present moment an extensive organisation in touch with the educational authorities of the whole Empire. According to a correspondent, o-f the “Times,” this Imperial text-book scheme is the first full recognition of co-operation in educational matters. It is quite possible, hie says, that the scheme may prove to have laid t-he foundations of an educational federation of the Empire, because, encouraged by its success, the League of the Empire is advancing a -step further, and is proposing the adoption of a definite and permanent system of inter-state ao-operation. The Education Conference will begin its sittings, appropriately enough, on Empire Day. _____