The position today is that the Department of Education is at the centre of the administrative pattern, with district education boards and school committees looking after the local interests of primary, intermediate, and district high schools, and boards of governors, boards of managers, and post-primary school councils administering post-primary schools and technical institutes at the local level. Pre-school education is administered by local associations and committees, all of which are affiliated to their own national organisations.

A Commission on Education was set up by the Minister early in 1960 to report on the publicly controlled system of primary, post-primary, and technical education in relation to the present and future needs of the country. The hearings of the Commission were held in various centres and opportunity was taken by the Commission to visit teachers' training colleges, schools, and educational institutions of all kinds. The official report of the Commission, which was submitted to the Minister of Education in June 1962, contained a large number of recommendations for improvements in the national system of education. Many of the recommendations of the Commission had already been implemented when a consolidation of educational law and practice was undertaken in 1964. Some of the remaining recommendations, which called for amendments to the law, were incorporated in the new Education Act. There were still, however, a few far-reaching recommendations of the Commission; for example, those on the administrative system and on the organisation of teacher training in relation to the universities, on which there was not a sufficient measure of agreement among interested parties for legislation to be introduced. Thus a review of educational law and practice had become an urgent need in order to remedy the complexity and uncertainty of the provisions of the Education Act of 1914 following its continual amendment to meet changing needs over a period of 50 years. Once, however, the law had been clarified, the way would be clear for consideration by interested parties of outstanding issues in the field of education which would in turn call for further legislation. Meanwhile, the Education Act of 1964, by redefining the field of education, made specific provision for recent developments in that field, particularly those relating to technical education. The former distinction between secondary and technical schools was discontinued and they were now classified as secondary schools. At the same time, the provision made by amending legislation in 1963 for the establishment of technical institutes, devoted solely or largely to the provision of technical and continuation education, was reenacted.

by Harvey Egdell, B.COM., Chief Executive Officer (Administration), Department of Education, Wellington and Francis James Comerford, M.A., Advisory Officer, Department of Education, Wellington.

The major concern in the administration of the public school system during the same period was the need to devise administrative means which would reconcile the interests of the Department and the education boards. Despite shifts in the balance of responsibility since the 1877 Education Act, the fundamental difference had remained that education boards, with little financial responsibility, were concerned to get the best educational facilities possible for their districts while the Department, responsible for distributing Government grants, was committed to see that they were used economically from the point of view of the country as a whole.

The basic problem remained of finding a modus vivendi reconciling the interests of the boards and the Department. In 1955, following representations by the Education Boards' Association, the Minister of Education set up a joint committee of departmental officers and association representatives, under the chairmanship of the Director of Education, “to explore the desirability of making changes in the division of functions and powers between the various organs concerned with the administration of the primary school system …”. The unanimous recommendations of the joint committee, presented in a report to the Minister of September 1956, were endorsed by the education boards and accepted by the Minister. In consequence of the report, there followed a delegation to boards (sometimes acting in agreement with the local senior inspector of schools) in several matters which, although not singly of importance, together amounted to a substantial increase in the autonomy of education boards. The most important outcome of the committee's report was perhaps the agreement reached that the Education Boards' Association should be regarded as the spokesman of the boards on matters of national policy and that a standing committee on administration should be set up, composed of representatives of the Association and the Department, to act as a permanent link between the local and central authorities. The standing Committee has continued to operate since its establishment as the instrument through which the boards and the department can reach agreement on important administrative issues.

Changes in the field of education beginning about this time were to have important administrative consequences. In 1936 the proficiency examination was abolished and free secondary education up to the age of 19 years became available to pupils completing the primary school course. The movement towards post-primary education for all was further stimulated in 1944 by the raising of the school leaving age to 15.

A wider choice of courses became necessary to meet the needs of the influx of new post-primary pupils. Revised prescriptions for courses and an adjusted basis for post-primary grants tended to eliminate the difference between secondary and technical schools in all but the larger centres. Other factors carrying forward the process of unification in the post-primary field were the appearance of a uniform salary scale for secondary and technical school teachers in 1945, and the practice, from 1947 onwards, for the post-primary inspectorate to work as a composite group over all post-primary schools.

Following the Second World War, the need to take appropriate steps to meet unprecedented increases in the school population took precedence over all other considerations in determining education policy. These increases, first experienced in the primary age groups but later extending to post-primary groups, called for proportionate increases in the supply of teachers, and in the provision of classrooms, teaching equipment, and other facilities such as school transport. The demand for additional classrooms and equipment was aggravated by an arrears of deferred work and inadequate equipment resulting from labour and material shortages in the concluding years of the war.

This situation called for closer liaison between the Department and local education authorities and their agreement on simpler and more effective administrative arrangements. In the primary field, standard plans did much to speed classroom building, but the difficulty remained that education boards could not develop any real responsibility while dependent on individual grants for particular works. A system of annual building programmes, put into operation in the financial year 1953–54, was a partial solution to this problem. Following a visit by Departmental officers to England, various measures observed there were adapted to New Zealand conditions. Schools were planned on a “block” principle to give improved facilities at lower cost. A new system of primary school building was adopted which gave education boards increased authority and responsibility, and an incentive to use local skill. Education boards were to plan and build within “white lines” imposed on the one hand by the minimum standards of a building code and on the other by a ceiling figure placed by Government on the finance available for a particular project.

The important problem of maintaining a sufficient supply of teachers proved no less difficult of solution and called for close coordination of effort between the Department and local education authorities in the operation of emergency training schemes and other measures adopted to improve the supply of teachers. At the same time, progress was made by the Department, the education boards, and the New Zealand Educational Institute towards agreement on a new scheme for the appointment and promotion of teachers which would replace the system based on accumulated grading marks. The outcome was amending legislation which made recommendations by Appointments Committees (on which were represented the appointing authority, the Department and the teachers) the main factor in determining primary appointments.

In some sectors of the national system of education, the Department, in the absence of a strong regional authority, was obliged to take the initiative in devising means for meeting post-war problems. This applied particularly in respect of problems associated with the future of Maori schools. In 1879 the newly created Department of Education had been given control of the native village schools in the belief that the needs of Maori children would require special attention. Over the years the system worked well, although there was a general understanding that the Maori schools would ultimately be absorbed in the public school system. However, the continuing adjustment of the Maori people to the economic life of the country, improved teaching methods in public schools, and the possibility of Maori schools and public schools being established, because of population growth, in the same town, led to the Minister of Education setting up a committee to consider the control of Maori schools. The committee which reported in 1956 recommended that the process of handing Maori schools over to education boards “should be gradual and spread over several generations of pupils”. In consequence of the committee's report, full consultations with the Maori people preceded the subsequent transfer of one or two Maori schools to education boards; an officer for Maori education was appointed; and school committees for Maori schools were established similar to those of the public schools.

By the middle fifties, the impact of rising school rolls had reached the post-primary schools. This gave urgency to the long-standing problem of finding a rational system of control for post-primary schools which would reconcile a large degree of local participation with the need for central direction of educational policy. A system for the control of groups of post-primary schools was introduced in Christchurch in 1948 which promised a solution to this problem in larger centres of population. Under the “Christchurch system”, each participating school had its own board to control its domestic affairs. The separate boards elected the majority of members of a post-primary schools council which would act on their behalf in matters common to all and would maintain a central office to provide clerical and accounting services. Although legislative provision was made in 1953 for this system to be adopted in other centres, the Wellington city area, to which it was introduced in 1956, is the only other region to which it has been extended. In general, new post-primary schools established in suburban areas and in growing boroughs to meet school population increases have been set up at the wish of the local people, under their own boards of governors. These boards have been constituted so as to give a large representation to parents of pupils and other groups and organisations directly interested in the work of the schools. An exception to this tendency is found in one or two provincial towns — e.g., Palmerston North or Napier, where the one governing body has controlled all post-primary schools for many years, a plan which has local approval. While, however, separate boards for separate schools are insisted upon in the outer suburbs of Auckland, Wellington, Dunedin, and in the Hutt Valley, there will continue to be a need for some agency to perform in those areas similar functions to those carried out in Christchurch and the inner Wellington city area by a post-primary schools council. These coordinating functions will, in the absence of some specific authority, devolve upon the Department of Education. In that case, the Department's decentralisation, begun with the opening of an Auckland office in 1948 and continued by the establishment of a Christchurch office in 1960 and a Wellington office in 1963, has placed the Department in a better position to meet these responsibilities.

In 1927 the Government set up a committee of its members to enquire into means of reducing the cost of education. A new Director of Education, T. B. Strong, presented a strong case for the abolition of all local education authorities except school committees. Later, he modified his proposals to provide for the retention of post-primary authorities with reduced powers similar to those of school committees. The education boards, threatened with extinction, attacked the Director's submissions and successfully rallied support for their cause in Parliament and in the press. A change of Government in 1929 brought forward the Hon. Harry Atmore as Minister of Education. On his motion, the Education Committee of the House of Representatives was empowered to sit during the recess and report on “all matters relating to education and public instruction generally.” The report of the recess Committee (commonly referred to as the Atmore report) rejected the Department's proposals for the abolition of the education boards. In doing so, the Committee stated its conviction that “the public of New Zealand would rather bear the burden of the extra cost of the present system than change it for one of bureaucratic control, however much cheaper the latter may be.” It recommended that the control of primary and post-primary education should be unified under reorganised education boards responsible for the administration of education in their districts. Under this reorganisation, school committees would be responsible for the day to day management of the primary schools, and post-primary school boards, reduced in status to school councils, would carry out similar functions for post-primary schools. As part of its proposals for the unified control of education, the Committee recommended that there should be one national teaching service and that the inspectorate should be unified.

Shortly after the publication of the Atmore report in August 1930, a reorganised Coalition Government set up a National Expenditure Commission to make recommendations for reductions in national expenditure. Although the Commission re-examined and supported the Department's case for the abolition of education boards, the Government, by then strongly aware of the support for local control, did not implement the proposal.

With the appointment of N. T. Lambourne as Director of Education in 1933, there began an improvement in relations between the Department and the education boards. The improved relationships were consolidated by his successor, C. E. Beeby, and in the post-war years the process of centralisation which had continued uninterrupted from the beginning of the century, was in some measure, reversed.

In 1935 a Labour Government was elected to office in improved economic conditions. An Education Bill introduced in 1938 indicated the new Government's endorsement of the Atmore report's recommendation for the local unified control of primary and post-primary education under reorganised education boards. Subsequently, these reorganisation proposals were withdrawn from the Bill with a view to their being included in a Bill consolidating all educational legislation to be introduced later. Work on this consolidating Bill was largely completed by 1941, but in the following year the Government decided not to proceed with it, no doubt because of practical difficulties in introducing a major measure of administrative reform when the country was at war.

The Education Act of 1914 has been described as “the resultant of three forces: an agitation by primary teachers, which had the sympathy of the Department, for a national grading scheme and a centrally controlled inspectorate; a vague yet powerful public opinion in favour of local control, reinforced by the still substantial political influence of the boards; and the powerful opposition of secondary school interests to unified local control over the three main branches of school education,” (Webb: Control of Education in New Zealand, p. 89).

Despite the recommendations of the Cohen Commission, the Education Act of 1914 made no provision for the unified local control of primary and post-primary education. In the primary field, the powers of education boards were curtailed and those of the central Department strengthened. The control of the primary inspectorate passed from the boards to the Department, and a system of grants instituted under which boards were obliged to use moneys for the purposes for which they were granted. Grants to school committees were so regulated that boards became intermediaries in making available sums over which they had no influence. The committees ceased, however, to have important administrative functions and tended to be concerned with the day to day care and management of the school buildings and grounds. In this restricted sphere, the committees were free to develop what has become their principal function, of relating the life of the school to the life of the community.

The centralisation of the primary inspectorate enabled the institution of a national grading system for teachers, which by 1920 had become the basis for all general appointments in the primary teaching service. Thus, within a few years from the passing of the Education Act of 1914, education boards had little voice in formulating educational policy; had lost their discretion in the appointment of teachers; and were able within restricted limits only to determine the use of their funds.

Following the passing of the Education Act of 1914, the secondary and technical school authorities lost a degree of autonomy. Once the free place system became general, the boards became more dependent on grants distributed by the Department. Regulations which prescribed the courses of instruction together with requirements of certain examinations set limits to the exercise by post-primary school authorities of their right to determine courses of study in their schools. A national salary scale followed regulations in 1920 for the classification of post-primary teachers. In consequence, a new basis for financing post-primary education became necessary. Post-primary school boards were reimbursed the salaries of teachers and were granted a capitation grant for administrative costs. Any income received from public endowments was deducted from the latter grant. The boards' public endowments were, however, nationalised in 1949.

The period from the appointment of George Hogben as Inspector-General in 1899 to the passing of the Education Act 1914 was one of almost continual reform in education. Prior to his appointment, Hogben had been Principal of Timaru Boys' High School, and before that an inspector of the North Canterbury Education Board. He had also been actively concerned in the establishment of the teachers' organisation, the New Zealand Educational Institute. This background of experience, together with an innate enthusiasm and drive, made Hogben singularly well-equipped for the task of educational reform.

Hogben's earliest reforms were concerned with the improvement of the examination system in the schools and the preparation of a more liberal syllabus, matters within the competence of the Department. These measures depended for success on an improvement in the quality of teachers. Various factors contributed to the low standard of the teaching profession. Salary scales differed from one board to another; in some districts school committees had the main voice in making appointments and were often influenced by parochial considerations; and diverse classification systems precluded the movement of teachers between board districts. The Public School Teachers' Salaries Act of 1901 established a national scale of salaries and made possible the introduction of a national superannuation scheme for teachers. Further legislation in 1905 and 1908 defined with certainty the procedure for making appointments.

While the boards' powers to determine teachers' conditions of employment were being progressively lessened, their authority was being restricted in other directions. In 1901 a system of grants for individual building works replaced the lump sums previously payable on estimated annual requirements. A uniform basis prescribed for the payment of grants by boards to school committees increased the financial autonomy of the latter authorities.

Perhaps the most far-reaching reforms of the period related to secondary education, which had largely been excluded from the purview of the Education Act of 1877. In the period 1877–99 a series of local Acts established more than 20 endowed secondary schools under Boards of Governors. These schools, patterned on English Grammar Schools, provided academic courses of instruction for what were predominantly fee-paying pupils.

Hogben's aim was to make secondary education available to more pupils and to broaden the secondary school curriculum. The Secondary Schools Act 1903 virtually forced the free place system on the secondary schools, which were required to accept the offer of capitation allowances for free places or to institute free places to the value of one-fifth of their endowment income. The Act also provided for the inspection of secondary schools, the establishment of new ones, and the making of special grants for the building additions necessitated by an increasing influx of free place pupils.

The task of reforming the syllabus to bring it into closer relationship with the needs of the community proved more difficult. Secondary school boards (and education boards in respect of secondary departments of district high schools) refused liberal grants offered under the Manual and Technical Instruction Acts of 1900 and 1902 for the introduction of practical subjects rather than accept the conditions for the close supervision of classes. The education boards were prepared, however, to establish technical classes under the control of managers. From the aggregation of technical classes and associated classes established in this way developed technical schools which by the end of the period were providing, in addition to the practical classes for which they were originally established, courses of instruction in the subjects taught in the secondary schools.

From 1910 onwards, it became increasingly evident that the educational reforms of the period, undertaken without full regard to their administrative consequences, raised difficult problems of coordination of control in education. A Royal (Mark Cohen) Commission recommended as a solution a large measure of decentralisation, and the unified local control of primary, secondary, and technical education. Meanwhile a new Administration elected with a slender majority was in no position to introduce sweeping and controversial measures. In the circumstances, the consolidating Education Act of 1914 was, like its predecessor of 1877, to some extent a compromise of conflicting interests.

On the passing of the Abolition of the Provinces Act of 1875, public education, until then the responsibility of the Provincial Councils, became the direct concern of the Central Government. The outcome was the Education Act of 1877 which established a national system of public primary education with a three-tiered administrative structure. Control of the system was to be divided between:

1. A Department of Education, under a Minister of Education, which was to be responsible for distributing grants to education boards (including a general purposes capitation grant) and which would regulate by Order in Council the standards of education to be maintained by boards.

2. Twelve education boards which were to define school districts within their areas and to establish and maintain public schools in those districts, including district high schools in rural areas in which secondary instruction could be given. Each board was to consist of nine members elected by the school committees of its district.

3. School committees elected by a ballot of local householders which were to have the general management of educational matters in their school district.

The Act of 1877 was expected to provide a decentralised system of public primary education, with a balance of forces between education boards and school committees which would leave the real power with the latter. Nevertheless, public primary education continued to be dominated by the education boards after the passing of the Act. The boundaries of the new education boards were largely those of the old, and inevitably the first elections returned a majority of previous office holders. As the officers of the old provincial boards remained to serve the new, the boards could thus draw on a fund of administrative experience.

The school committees, on the other hand, were many and widely scattered in an age when communications were poor. Consequently, they had few opportunities for developing a concerted policy on any aspect of education. Their position would have been stronger if they had been responsible for larger districts, but the boards defined school districts in terms of single schools.

If the Education Act of 1877 did not clearly demarcate the respective spheres of authority of education boards and school committees, it failed also to provide the central Department with the means for carrying out its limited functions. Although the Department prescribed standards of education and determined in detail the method for calculating the average attendance on which capitation grants were to be made to boards, it had no local officers or other means of ensuring that its prescriptions were carried out or that grants made available to Boards for particular purposes were applied to those ends.

The first phase of the system of free, secular, and compulsory education established by the Act of 1877 ended with the retirement of W. J. Habens as Inspector-General of the Department of Education in 1899. Throughout the period, there was no general consent that the Act had brought into being an ideal balance of administrative forces; nor was there any indication that the system of grants to boards would bring about a desired levelling of educational facilities throughout the country. Further reforms in the period had been precluded by the strong political influence of the education boards and the general belief that any attempt to interfere with a national system of education precariously achieved in 1877 might lead to the collapse of the whole system.

The provision of educational facilities in the earliest years of the New Zealand colony was largely the concern of the churches and private secular organisations which came to be assisted by limited grants from State funds. By the Constitution Act of 1852, New Zealand was redivided into provinces which, through their own Provincial Councils, became responsible for a number of subjects, including education. From the outset, because of limited funds at their disposal, many of these councils favoured assistance to denominational schools rather than the establishment of public schools. By 1871, however, the beginnings of a public school system had been established under education boards in the major provinces.

(1904– ).

Professor of biochemistry.

Norman Lowther Edson was born in Auckland on 1 March 1904 and educated at Auckland Grammar School; at Otago University where he graduated M.B.Ch.B., B.Med.Sc.; and at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he gained Ph.D. He held a Beit Memorial fellowship at Cambridge in 1935–36 and was Travis research fellow from 1940 to 1944. In the latter year he became associate professor of biochemistry at Otago University and in 1949 was raised to professorial status. Professor Edson is a fellow of the New Zealand Royal Society and of the New Zealand Institute of Chemistry. He has contributed numerous articles to biochemical and medical journals.