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N.Z.U.S.A. Congress 1959. Curious Cove - New Zealand University Student Press Council

N.Z. Higher Education Future

N.Z. Higher Education Future

The dominent theme of this 1959 Congress was the discussion of higher education in New Zealand. Students were therefore particularly interested in what the Director of Education had to say, because, as Dr. Beeby said, "I'm a bureaucrat. In fact, as far as the University is concerned, I'm the bureaucrat." His address, representing the point of view of the administrator, and the "consumer" of university products, discussed new aspects of the general question of university education in this country, and particularly the extent to which the University should respond to the demands the community makes upon it.

From the very beginning, Dr. Beeby emphasised that "the State should never use the power of the purse to make the University do something it doesn't want to do". (This is not the same thing as saying that the University should be given State funds to do whatever it likes.) When invited by the State to undertake any new function, the University itself must decide whether or not it will do it, and must then take the consequences of its decision, in that the State may adapt its own institutions to take over any function the University refuses."

The University in New Zealand must almost inevitably be something different from universities elsewhere, because New Zealand is practically unique in that one University has had a monopoly of higher education for a whole country. In England, there is a hierarchy of institutions giving higher education, from Oxford and Cambridge, at one end of the scale, to technical colleges at the other, preparing students for the external degrees of the University of London. The range in any American State is even wider. A student denied entrance to a university at one end of the scale can frequently gain admission to another further down the street. So any particular university can raise its entrance standards, reduce its failure rate and refuse to have anything to do with part-time or extramural students, and some other institution may accept its rejects. The responsibilities of the University in New Zealand to the community are wider just because it has a monopoly, and it must be compared, not with any particular university in England or America, but with a whole system of universities.

The community, said Dr. Beeby, is making increasing demands on the University for more engineers, scientists, teachers, and, since the students have been drawn, over recent years, from children born in the nineteen-thirties, when the birth-rate was at its lowest, the number of first-rate candidates has been inadequate. This has created a tension between the community's demands for more professional men and the University's natural desire to raise its standards, a tension that is heightened in New Zealand by the monopoly the University holds.

Dr. Beeby then dealt with the essential functions a university must perform if it is to merit the title at all, functions that cannot be sacrificed whatever the demands from the community. He quoted Charles Morris, "Historically, a university is a home of learning . . . Learning is the unqualified pursuit and study of truth." "It is essential," he said, "that the student must be taught a sturdy faith in the power of reason in human affairs, and that nothing but thinking will do." This function embraces not only research in the ordinary sense, but also the duty of the university teacher to comment on affairs in the community around him, and to show how social problems look in the light of reason. Teaching, however, is equally a function of the university, teaching aimed not only at the "perpetuation of the race of scholars", but also at the production of professional men and women for service in the community.

In trying to meet the country's demands for more services and more graduates, the University must impose certain conditions on itself. It should never sacrifice functions that it, and it alone, can carry out; it must never drop degree standards to meet special situations (though it may modify degrees as it has done recently, for example, in Agriculture); it alone must decide how it responds to demands; and it must never forget the special responsibilities imposed on it by the monopoly it holds of higher education in this country.

The University in New Zealand, said Dr. Beeby, must decide whether or not it is going to accept the European concept of a highly selective university for the elite, or whether it is to continue to admit all who gain the minimum entrance qualification. It seemed likely that it would try to follow the second course, though shortage of buildings and staff to meet the rapidly growing numbers of students might cause some modification of this policy. If the less restrictive policy is followed, there will need to be a rapid increase in buildings and staff, and there may well grow up certain "satellite" institutions in such places as Palmerston North and Hamilton, that will take some of the strain from the parent institutions. For that matter, the four universities that are now gaining their independence may develop special characters and functions of their own that may modify the monopoly that has characterised our university system up to the present.

Dr. Beeby was most concerned that "the University should not lose those things that give it its essential character—and I know no one who wishes to do so". "I see little danger," he said, "of this happening if the values of the University are woven into the very stuff of your thinking and if you can help the general public to understand and respect them. Given that, the University can safely try to meet the demands that the community makes upon it."

By—

Dr. C. E. Beeby, C.M.G., M.A. (N.Z.), Ph.D. (Manchester)—Degrees in philosophy and psychology; lecturer in philosophy and education, Canterbury, 1923-34; Director, New Zealand Council for Educational Research, 1934-38; Assistant Director of Education, New Zealand, 1938-40; now Director of Education since 1940; Assistant Director-General and Head of Unesco's Department of Education, 1948-49; member of University Senate since 1940.

Cartoon from NZ Herald

"Excuse me, Dr. Beeby, the consequences are here!"

(Reproduced by kind permission of the "N.Z. Herald")

Congress is an Annual University Extracurricular Activity Organized by the New Zealand University Students' Association and Usually Held at Curious Cove in the Last Week in January.