EDUCATION REFORM.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 June 1920, Page 5

EDUCATION REFORM.

DIFFERENT SYSTEM OF PAY. MORE AGRICULTURAL WORK. By Telegraph.-—Press Association. Christchurch, Last Night. The Hon. C. J. Parr (Minister of Education) told deputations to-day that he favor the present system of capitation payment, and he proposed that secondary teachers should be paid a definite salary according to their efficiency, instead of their salaries being controlled by the average attendances. Perhaps some better method of financing technical schools could be adopted, and he thought it would be advisable for the Department • to confer with those engaged in education. With regard to agricultural instruction, he thought they were not doing half enough to this matter. It should be the aim to increase Hhe productiveness of the soil, but nothing in this direction was being done by our university colleges. Our technical education was utterly beliiirff the times. We must increase our exports, and the only way to do that was to teach better farming methods. He also proposed to take action in the direction of assisting technical schools to teach home, science on a large scale. As for school committees, he considered it would be an ill day when they ceased to have some form of local control and local interest, and until he srw a better system than the one thev had at present he was not going to disturb it.