EDUCATION IN ARMY

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 28, 28 October 1942, Page 4

EDUCATION IN ARMY

Assistance Of Technical College

USE OF WORKSHOPS AND CLASSROOMS

Hearty support of the movement for vocational education of members of the armed forces was expressed by the chairman, Mr. AV. Appleton, and other members of the Wellington Technical College Board of Governors last night. The board acceded to a request by the Director of Education that it allow the use of college workshops and classrooms for this purpose during the vacation. Answering a board member, Mr. Appleton said that correspondence courses were to be tlie basis of the scheme and the workshop practice would supplement it. The chairman said that from the beginning of the war the board had thought that the facilities of the college should be used more in the direction that was now proposed, and the board should assist in every possible way. Both the Sydney and the Melbourne technical colleges were conducting correspondence courses in a long list of subjects, and soldiers as far away as Port Moresby, New Guinea, were taking them. Every week university professors set off in Army trucks on tours of camps, lecturing to audiences of soldiers as large as 2000 at night, and giving half-hour lectures to groups as small as 30 during the day. In March, 550 lectures were given to 84,379 men. v Educational and documentary films were screened on 32S occasions, sometimes in hospitals, A pupil paid a fee of 15/- and the Army 10/-, but the pupil’s fee was refunded if he worked -systematically. Music was not the least popular subject, and Isidore Goodman travelled round in an Army truck with a baby grand piano. He was glad the New Zealand Education Department was taking the steps it was to help soldiers to prepare themselves for life after the war.

Mrs. Al. J. Bentley said men in camp soon tired of the games in the recreation huts and expressed a desire to study.

Tlie director, Mr. R. G. Ridling, reported that a representative of the Army had discussed with him the correspondence courses that tlie college was already operating. At the request of tlie Army educational authorities he had indicated what additional courses might lie required. If these were approved the college might have to establish a correspondence department. A member of the board pointed out that the facilities of the college could be used during the terms as well as during vacations. .