The New Zealand Correspondence School: its origins and early years

Abstract

This thesis attempts to show the way in which the New Zealand Correspondence School began. It outlines the development of this school in its first twelve years, from a doubtful experiment, to a firmly established and fast-growing institution. The thesis draws attention to the long delay in providing free and compulsory education for all New Zealand children - an aim of t 1877 Education Act. Not until the Correspondence School was established in 1922, could this Act be implemented fully, with its compulsory education clause. There is an examination of some negative attitudes to correspondence education at the time the school began. These attitudes are seen against the background of more widespread negative attitudes to correspondence education, which have persisted until recently. They include negative attitudes to research on distance teaching. Special attention is paid to the pressures on the government to improve education after World War I, especially in rural districts. An attempt is made to show that the Correspondence School was set up in response to these pressures. With this institution, legislative change followed administrative change, rather than preceding it, in the establishment of the school. Attention is drawn to the fact that teaching at a distance was not new to education when the school began: these methods had been used since the beginning of the twentieth century in New Zealand. It is shown that correspondence methods were used extensively, especially to provide tuition for untrained teachers in rural districts. The thesis shows the ambivalent attitude of the government and the Education Department towards the use of the Correspondence School in solving the problems of rural education, early this century. Other methods of solving rural problems were tried - and these are outlined. It is shown how correspondence education eventually became an acceptable alternative to conventional face-to-face teaching, in spite of experimental beginnings. An important point is the way in which the government endeavoured to make use of the newly-won acceptability of correspondence education during the years of the 1930s economic depression. Attention is given not only to the part played by the particular economic period, but also to the first head teachers in the school's ear1y years. Finally, in filling gaps in earlier records, the thesis attempts to redress the balance in past lack of research on the history of correspondence education. It attempts to show, particularly, the significance for New Zealand education, of the setting up of the Correspondence School.