EDUCATION TOO CHEAP

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21214, 10 September 1940, Page 7

EDUCATION TOO CHEAP

VIEW OF CAMBRIDGE LECTURER STUDENTS SHOULD PAY DOUBLE (By Telegraph.—Special to Times) INVERCARGILL, Monday “Education, both in the secondary schools and in the university colleges in New Zealand, is too cheap, and that is the reason why students do not get more individual attention,” said Mr L. H. G. Greenwood, Cambridge University lecturer in classics and Fellow of Emmanuel College, in an interview in Invercargill. Schools and universities were short-staffed and there was a tremendous amount of routine work for university teachers and school masters to do, Mr Greenwood said. Whereas in Britain lecturers spent a great deal more time preparing for lectures, mapping out programmes and “re-thinking” than they did in delivering lectures, the position in New Zealand was the other way about. Students in the Dominion expected to get the most advanced education for practically nothing. There were two possible remedies to the situation. Either the Government could make larger grants to schools and universities, or students should pay more. Students should be required to pay double what they pay now. Only the best students should be assisted with scholarships, and the amount spent on staffs, both in increasing salaries and in increasing the staffs numerically, should be doubled. As it was now, any person of only average capabilities was able to obtain the best education that could be obtained for very little money.