SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 817, 25 March 1955, Page 12

SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS

THE ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION IN NEW ZEALAND, edited by G. : Parkyn and published by the New Zealand Institute of Public Administration.

(Reviewed by

L.J.

W.

O doubt it is a good thing that the Institute of Public Administration should hold a convention to hear, and presumably to discuss, addresses on the administration of education in this country. But when one considers the number and the wide coverage of books on education in New Zealand-even the short bibliography printed in this one is revealing-one may well doubt the worth of publishing these addresses, especially without the discussion that presumably followed. The book may readily be considered as of two parts. One part comprises the papers on the Control of Primary Schools, the post-Primary System, Adult Education, and the University, prepared respectively by A. E. Campbell, H. Henderson, P. Martin Smith, and G. A. Currie, These are mainly descriptive; they are old stories re-told (and certainly well told), ‘with just so much critical comment as may be expected from people working, as these writers are,

within the system. Worth special notice, however, are Mr. Martin Smith’s plea, opposed to the view of the Consultative Committee on Adult Education in 1947, "to bring adult education into the general current" and to make school buildings serve a wider purpose in community education (pp. 78-80); and Dr. Currie’s exposition at p. 92, of the relationship that should exist between the reconstituted University Grants Committee and the Government in regard to university finance. The other part of the book consists of the. opening paper-Educating a De-mocracy-by H. E. Field, and the final paper-Some Fundamental Problems of Democratic Administration-by G. W. _Parkyn. Professor Field’s paper, which might well have been extended, discusses, first, some of the assumptions concerning man and his needs implied in the democratic view of life, assumptions on which most people agree; and, next, the conflicts that inevitably arise in practice because of different interpretations arising from the diverse scales of values held among people. Some of these subjects of conflict, such as state aid to private schools and part-time university study, are live issues; others,’ such as formal examination by inspectors and local taxation for education, are

dead. Mr. Parkyn elaborates the variety of aims and issues raised by the various papers read, and sets out to show that one thread running through them is "the conflict over the proper division of responsibilities, duties, powers, and rights

fn the democratic organisation of an education service.’ On these matters Mr. Parkyn exercises his acute analytical faculties in a valuable essay.