EDUCATION

New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 165, 21 August 1942, Page 7

EDUCATION

HIS is the greatest educational enterprise in all human history. In Tsarist Russia there was 75 percentage of illiteracy in the European provinces and 90% in the Asiatic provinces. To-day an attempt is being made to educate all in Russia, young and old. In 1940 there were about 40 million pupils in the schools-nearly the equal of the whole population of Britain. But that is not all. In the same year there were 50 million adults attending education courses. be * * ATURALLY, in all countries education must run roughly parallel to the social and political system. Naturally, therefore, in Russia, an important study is that of the economic structure of their own country and also of others. In the first flush of Communist enthusiasm much more time than at present was given to social studies, even among young pupils. But this has been, and is being, mere and more modified to make way for the reintroduction of some of the old traditional subjects which, it was realised, had been too hastily abandoned. % ue % HE aim is to make every school a ten year school, and to give this course to every child. Then, of course, there are the summer camps for the four- and seven-years schools, where, under teacher-supervision, sports, drama, music and craft-works are carried on. Education has been universal and compulsory since 1930. Schools have been built by the hundred thousand-many of them very fine buildings with their own cinemas and theatres attached. % * % APVOCATES of the abolition of corporal punishment in New Zealand can cite Russia as an exemplar-for there it is non-existent-indeed there is very little punishment even of the milder sort. Any social "disorganiser" is regarded as a case to be inquired into by the teacher, in the home, the circumstances, the time-table, the child’s health, and so on. Indeed more and more responsibility is being thrown on the teachers for the children’s welfare. o ae "m NOTHER change that has recently taken place is in the restoration of control to the teachers. At first, in the revolt against all representatives of it --including the teachers-pupils could discipline teachers, could put up their notices, could report on the teachers and against the teachers to the local Soviet. They had their Young Pioneers clubs, as they were called, who saw to it that everything in the school and in the teaching. corresponded with the Bolshevik doctrines. But this has gone, and now it is recognised that a child is a child and that the so-called self-govern-ment was a misnomer,