FREE PUCE SYSTEM

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 80, 1 October 1931, Page 12

FREE PUCE SYSTEM

SUGGESTED ABOLITION

NOT FAVOURED BY

MINISTER

A definite assurance that he does not. intend to abolish, the free place system as a. means of economy in the Education Voto was received , with applause when the Minister of Education was replying to a deputation from the New' Zealand Federation' of Teachers yesterday afternoon.

Mr. F. C. Brew, chairman of the managing committee of the federation, asked if the results of a move to abolish the free place system in primary education had been considered.l In 1898, when fees were charged for attendance at post-primary schools, the, number of pupils in attendance was four per 1000 t>f > population; in 1930 it was 20 per 1000. The return to the system, of paying fees would probably bring the secondary, school rolls down from the present 30,000 to, 10,000. The other 20,000 children would be abandoned by the State, and would be untaught 'and unemployed, soon degenerating into the unemployable, A minor but yet serious result also would be the reintroduction of class distinction within the decimated secondary schools. A furthcr'point that' had to be considered was that many children now passed Standard VI. at the age of 12 years. ADOLESCENT UNEMPLOYED. The abolition of the free place system in Not; Zealand would bring about the hideous problem 'of the unemployed adolescent,' which was causing the greatest concern in England. It' was not too much to say that the abolition of .Iree post-primary education would lead to.- a wholesale deterioration of the youth of New Zealand at any time, and a' no time more than the present. The spread of education had been accompanied by a diminution in juvenile crime. The logical inference was that there -was a connection between the factors of cause and effect, and Mr. Brew illustrated his point by tho following figures concerning young people between 16 and 21 actually received into prison in Great Britain since 1860: 1860, 20,000; 1880, 28,090; 1900, 14,000; 1913, 7500; 1922, 4000. Even from tho financial point of view, it was cheaper to educate and train citizens than to punish and maintain criminals. It cost from £120 to £150 a year to maintain an inmate of the Borstal Institute, and about £15 to teach a primary school child, or £25 for a secondary school pupil. It cost about £36 to.give an unemployed single man work for a year, counting wages alone. ■The teachers of New Zealand, ho said, l'ccognised the difficulties confronting f,ho Minister( but only an intenso conviction oi' the supreme importance of tho issues involved moved them to ask i'or his; most earnest consideration of the facts and views' placed before him. Mr. F; M. Renner said it was not the scholarship pupil who. generally speaking shed' most lustre on. his school or derived the greatest benefit from his schooling. Forty to 50 por cent, of those who got the most out of the school were the children who did not enter the secondary school with scholarships, but through the free place system. Mr. G. G. Hancocks stressed that the abandonment of the free place,system would unduly penalise the man with a family. VNO INTENTION." "I want to say right now," declared the Minister (the Hon. B. Masters), in replying, "that I have no intention of doing, away with the f roe place in secondary education in New Zealand. (Applause.) I realise that our young people have to be given aa oppor-■tunity."^A-very'large. number of boys and girls left the secondary schools ■without having received a great deal of benefit, - and it was a waste of public money to" go on giving unnecessary secondary, education- in pases like that.