SECONDARY EDUCATION

Evening Star, Issue 19661, 14 September 1927, Page 2

SECONDARY EDUCATION

MARKED PROGRESS MADE COMMON SENSE METHODS [Fbom Our Parliamentary Kei'CßTee.] WICLLLvGTUX, September l‘i. Marked progress in secondary and university education was made in New Zealand during the year reviewed in tlio annual report of the Minister of Education, which was presented in the House to-dny. The number of pupils in post-primary schools increased, as well as the number of those who reached a standard of education that entitled them to free education at a university college. Tin's advance was reflected in the quality of the applicant for entrance to the teaching profession A few years ago education boards found it necessary to accept candidates who had no higher qualification than that indicated by the possession of an intermediate certificate or a pass in the Public Service entrance examination. None of the probationary teachers appointed during tho year had a lower qualification than a partial pass in the teachers’ Class D certificate examination, while not less than 07 per cent, had matriculated or passed Class D or Class C examinations or possessed the higher leaving certificate; while the output from tlio post-primary schools is of an increasingly better quality. Academically, there is a marked tendency for those in charge of secondary education to favor wider and more differentiated courses. The traditional, ecclesiastical typo of education, founded so many centuries ago, is at last losing its hold on tho schools. A demand has arisen for courses of cduea■tion that hear some relation to the future occupation of pupils. This change, so far as the general public is concerned, is due to an increased general interest in education, and to a more independent, and common sense view of its aims.

A proposed reorganisation, which lias for its object tho establishment of tho junior higli school system, lias been received with a certain amount of caution, if not .reserve, mainly because of the uncertainty of its effects upon both tho primary and the secondary schools, and lack of sufficiently definite information regarding tho cost. (Tho general opinion was that it would bo unwise to abandon tho present undoubtedly efficient primary school system before being assured of the suitability and worth of its rival.

More and more attention was being given to education in its wider aspects. Teachers and inspectors were coming to realise that it was not of so much importance to the child that ho should carry away from school a mass of information on all kinds of subjects as that his character should be developed in tho fullest possible manner. Further evidence of tho interest in the individual was to bo found in the establishment of special classes for the education of children of somewhat low mental equipment. Such children could make little or no progress under ordinary methods of instruction, and it was quite evident that it was of the highest social importance that such children should not bo allowed to grow up to be a burden to themselves and a menace to the welfare of the community. At the present time some twenty classes have been established in different parts of New Zealand to provide special comses suited to tho capacity of such pupils.