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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 8, No. 12. September 19, 1945
British Association Plans for Post-War Universities
British Association Plans for Post-War Universities
There has reached New Zealand recently a critical, detailed, compressed document of 60 pages which should be studied by every Faculty member, by every graduate and undergraduate of the NZU.
This is the British Association for the Advancement of Science "Report of the Committee on Post-War University Education."
Despite the sponsorship of the report, it is confined neither to "British" Universities, nor to education in science. It deals with University education in general after the war, the rehabilitation of Universities destroyed in the war, and arises directly out of the Association's Conference on Science and the World, Order held three years ago, at which twenty nations were represented.
| 1. | To consider the general policy and methods of University education with a view to promoting international collaboration and the free exchange of ideas, and relating University education to the needs of the community. |
| 2. | To consider the replanning of teaching departments and curricula in accordance with modern conceptions of the inter-relation of different branches of knowledge, particularly those of Science and the Humanities. |
| 3. | To survey the position regarding teaching material, apparatus, books and staff in Universities which have been destroyed, disorganized, or closed as a result of war. |
The personnel of the committee alone is guarantee of authority, including as it does Garnet, Weiss, Rene Cassin, Jaroslay Cisar. Le Gros Clark. Edgerton, Fleming, Priestley. Waddington. Zimmern, Julian Huxley, amongst others, together with representatives of Internal. Council of Students, ISS, Poland, Yugoslavia. Netherlands, Greece, Norway, Belgium, China, France, Czechoslovakia.
The Report
| (a) | General policy and methods, age of entry, tests, matriculation, residence, tutorial supervision, scholarships, mutual recognition of standards. |
| (b) | Replanning, with emphasis on a general cultural Degree in Natural Science and the Humanities, Sociology and citizenship, public service, education of teachers, research, adult education, broadcasting, teaching aids, finance, Universities advisory council, world-wide University collaboration, exchange of students and staff. |
| (c) | Rehabilitation of destroyed Universities. |
Of the many reports, broadsheets, and articles, over the past five years on post-war Universities, this must be regarded as the most concise so far. One's only regret is that a many-times expanded report could not have been issued, with a wider discussion of the various Faculties, to be to the Universities what Finer's book is to the British Civil Service.
I repeat that this report is a Must for everyone interested in University education and the training of teachers. If students have the interests of the real University at heart, they dare not miss it. If professors and lecturers are to be more than, peddlers of potted brains, they must read it. If the University is to fulfil its pleace in the community, those who govern our Universities must not only read, mark and inwardly digest, but also act on the proposals.
Can NZU Progress?
It is all very well to talk. But in New Zealand, against the overcrowding, the lack of research facilities, the total absence of cultural degrees, the smattering of knowledge that is brought to our University by the present product of secondary schools, and above all, by the everlasting pinch-penny economies of University education, can anyone say that in the next generation we will have made any real progress? We wonder in what direction the University in New Zealand is to progress. We look to those responsible for a lead, but we are left to wonder.
This report is to be found in "The Advancement of Science," vol iii, No. 9, issued September, 1944.—I.W.D.
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How they lived at the Arthur's Pass Schoolhouse.