Abstract:
As the following pages will show, the administration of education in New Zealand is a complicated and varied pattern of lay and professional activities without that coherence which the administrator usually likes to see in his organisation. Responsibility rests in the Minister of Education and his Department, but the business of education is carried on by a great variety of Boards, Committees, Associations, Schools, Teachers, Contractors, Caretakers, Bus-drivers and others. New Zealand's passion for Boards and Committees is no better illustrated than in the education service, but whereas these were intended originally to have wide powers, today they have very little freedom or discretion.
In recent years an attempt has been made to develop some order out of the chaos of local government control in New Zealand. The Local Government Commission set up in 1946 has made a little progress in amalgamating small Boards and in keeping a check on the development of others. It is of interest therefore to try to discover why a large Education Board should divide, why another Board should be created.
