DEFECTIVE EDUCATION

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 76, 24 December 1918, Page 3

DEFECTIVE EDUCATION

A SERIOUS PROBLEM

SCHOOL FACILITIES NOT USED Education inNNew-Zealand is free and compulsory, but the law has not yet succeeded in making all tho parents take full advantage of the facilities offered for the education' of their children. , It is a startling fact; that a-substantial pro--portion- of the children attending the public schools of the Dominion never reach [Standard G, to say nothing of attendance at the secondary, continuation ami. technical: schools. The facts are stated,briefly in the annual report of the Minister of Education.

' It appears" says the report, "that 84 per cent, of the pupils of Standard 1 reach Standard 5, and only 59, per cent, reach Standard C, sb> that approximately 11 per cent, of the pupils of-primary schools leave school without doing the work of 'Stnndnrd 6. From returns supplied by education .boards the number that left school in 1916 without passing Standard 6 was 5427, being 2914 boys'and 2453 girls. The figures, though a little lower than they were in the previous year, afford little ground for gratification. The Standard G qualification is the least educational equipment with which a child should be permitted to take up his> life's work, and the fact that the lack of it to a large extent prevents him from continuing his education afterwards makes the loss the more regrettable. It is not unlikely that among these children there are many! who would, if facilities for appropriate'further education were placed within their reach, eventually fit themselves to enter the ranks of the industrial workers of the Dominion. ' . 1

"The recent extension of the regula-tions-governing free-places providing for free education at classes related to industrial occupations (including agriculture and domestic occupations) of pupils leaving the public school without the recognised qualification for further free education will enable the technical schools to move in the direction indicated. These provide, inter alia, for the free education of recommended pupils oner fourteen years of age who have left the public schools not more than six months previously without obtaining a Standard G certificate qualifying for further free education. Pupils thus ndmitted must tnke subjects bearing upon a trnde or industry, including agricultural and domestic occupations, but not including commercial subjects. An increase in the scale of-payment is provided to-assist the finances of technical high schools and also those of rurnl classes, the maintenance of which is generally more costly than that of urban classes.

"These new features are in the direction of making a differentiation between the test or qualification required for further admission to high schools, which will tend to give a bias towards technical and industrial training. In addition parents whose circumstances' necessitate the sending of their children out to work immediately they may leave school will ]>e able.to secure further free, education for such children,

"It might be noted in this connection that whereas in New Zealand a child may leave school at the age of thirteen if he has obtained his certificate of proficiency, or a;t the age of fourteen otherwise, the English Education Act -provides for compulsory full-time attendance at school until the age of fourteen irrespective of the standard of education reached."