POST-PEIMABY EDUCATION CATION

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 41, 18 February 1930, Page 10

POST-PEIMABY EDUCATION

CATION

SIR .JAMES PARR'S REPORT

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —May I crave your indulgence for a fow comments on the report of Sir James Parr on post-primary "education in-England, which you published on 13th February. .

I spent several months last year in observation of tho English system, and, whilo I am in agreement with ' tho major part of Sir James Parr's report, I think there arc cortain suggestions in it which might be misleading to tho public. Insofar as • 'the report commends, the commencement of postprimary education ,at the age of eleven and its continuation until the - age of fifteen, I am in agreemeut^ If I read it correctly, however, it also advances recent oxporjements in England as evidence in favour of the proposed junior high school system in New Zealand, and mentions Brighton and Bradford in this connection. I did not visit Brighton, but in Bradford, London, and Manchester I did a considerable amount of. observation. In none of theso centres, which are considered the most progressive "in England, is there anything resembling tho proposed junior high school in New Zealand, "A junior high school, as I understand it, is a school to which' pupils are transferred at tho ago of twelve for a two or three years' course, the object of which is to discover .whether- they1 aro best adapted for Education in a secondary or in a technical school, ill England a pupil is,, transferred at tho ago of eleven to a school in which ho will complete his post-primary education. By careful grading at that ago pupils are graded into three groups, as follows: Scholarship winners, who receive an academic education in a socondary school; the best of the romainder, grades A and B, who receive • general education in central schools, with a commercial or technical bias in tho third and fourth years; grades C,. D, etc,, the least intellectual. type, who receive in senior schools an education in which manual training plays an important part. Nono of theso resembles a junior high school in its i object.

Tho report suggests that if junior high schools continuo their courses until tho ago of fiftoen, they will resemble. tho Bradford schools; This may bo so. But then they would cease entirely to fulfil the functions which the junior high school is intended to fulfil and would be junior high schools no longer. t »

In one other respect I think the report may be misleading. It stresses the fact that no great demand need bo mado on the -building fund to inaugurate the new scheme. It is true that in Bradford no great, building scheme was necessary. But Bradford was in the fortunate position of having a large number of small schools, a fact which greatly simplified the task of reorganisation. London, however, is greatly handicapped for want of /suitable buildings, and many of the new sonior schools are-- most unsuitably housed. In Manchester the able Director of Education, Mr. Spurley Hey, refuses to , reorganise without suitable modern accommodation. And Manchester proposes to spend half a millidiwin three years on new buildings, Mr. Spurley Hey contends, and I think rightly, that the new system must be given its trial under favourable conditions. This1 is especially necessary for the senior schools to which, tho duller pupils iiro'sen t.i Unless every prccau; tion is taken these pupils enter tho school with a marked inferiority complex. More than one headmaster assured mo that to remove this was the most ■difficult'task of tho school and thai suitable surroundings did much to assist in the task. : To introduce a new system without an adequate building programme would be, to my mind, a false stop.—l am, etc.,