Junior High Schools.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18690, 13 May 1926, Page 8

Junior High Schools.

At the annual meeting of the Technical School Teachera' Association, the President, Mr C. J. Park, made the same plea for Junior Technical Schools as has been made recently by other technical teachers, and on the same grounds. In Mr Park's opinion, if Junior High Schools are attached to Senior High Schools only, Technical day schools certainly will be killed, and the work of Technical night schools will probably be transferred to the Senior High Schools. This appears to mean the scrapping of the whole present system of education; but it is difficult to see how such a can* elusion can be deduced from the premises. Reform of technical education is certain, and there is ample reason to believe it necessary, quite apart from whatever adjustments and reorganisation are involved in the gradual growth .of the Junior High School system; but reform is not extinction. However, having prophesied the impending woe, Mr Park suggests a method of averting it. It has been proposed before, by other technical educationists, and it is the establishment of Junior Technical Schools. The argument is, of course, that these are to feed Technical Schools as Junior High Schools will feed, or are already feeding, Senior High Schools.. But; is there any ground for the suggestion that Junior High Schools do not or will not feed Technical Schools? The function of Junior High Schools is surely that of bridging the gap between primary and secondary schools, whether academic or technical; and since one of the many points claimed in favour of the system—not all of them, perhaps, thoroughly well proved —is that in Junior High Schools the suitability of the pupils for One type or another of later education is studied and determined, Technical Schools are likely to benefit from such improved classification and drafting quite as much as Senior High Schools. Mr Park's remedy would necessitate an altogether premature choice between two. different types of education, a choice which he himself indicates would be made by the parents, not by any means always good judges of their children's various aptitudes, oven at a later age. This proposal, which offers blind fumbling as an improvement on observation and reason, suggests, it is not too harsh to say, that technical school teachers are more conoerned about what they narrowly think to be the interests of technical education

than about education in the most liberal sense. Nevertheless, the time has come when the Department should quite clearly define its Junior High Sehool policy. There have been signs of confusion, hesitation, and shifting aim which are at the very least disquieting. A full announcement from the new Minister would resolve many doubts and—perhaps —silence some objections.