N.Z. SCHOOLS AND PROBLEMS

Grey River Argus, 22 September 1948, Page 8

N.Z. SCHOOLS AND PROBLEMS

WELLINGTON, Sept. 13

Eighty-five per cent, of the children who leave primary schools pass on to post-primary schools. This figure .has risen from 37 per cent, in 1917. These facts are given by the Minister of Education, the Hon. T. H. McCombs, in his report for the year ended March 31. Under the heading of “Post-Prim-ary Education For All,” the Minister discusses in some detail the problems of education arising from the ever-growing numbers in post-prim-ary schools. In 1917, 5489 children went on for higher education. In 192'2 7737 (47 per cent.) went on; in 1927 11,871 (50 per cent.); in 1932 12,154 (55 per cent.); in 1937 14,933 (65 per cent.); and in 1942 16,370 (70 per cent.).

In 1946 17,783 went on to the postprimary schools, or 85 per cent, of the total. The Minister commented that the increase in the children going to the post-primary schools was concerned not only with more teachers and more buildings but it involved essential changes in the very nature of post-primary education. The whole matter was so important and it was tied up with the recent discussion on the standard of work in the schools that he felt justified in restating the case put by his predecessor, Mr Mason. Early in the century the primary schools were concerned mainly with the three R’s, and only a small number rigidly selected by scholarship could win for themselves secondary education, apart from children whose parents could afford to send them to secondary schools. Since the secondary pupils were except for those who paid fees, specially selected for their academic abilities, it was quite natural that the curriculum of the secondary schools should be highly academic and their main purpose the preparation of students for the university. The present Government did not claim full credit for the increase of the percentage of post-primary scholars to 85, as the figures showed that it had been a constant tendency under a series of Governments throughout the century, though the process had been speeded up" over the last 10 years.

Mr Fraser, when Minister of Education in 1939, wrote: “The Government’s objective, broadly expressed, is that every person whatever his level of academic ability, whether he be rich or poor, whether he live in town or country, has a right as a citizen to a free education of the kind for which he is best fitted, and to the fullest extent of his powers. So far is this from being a mere pious platitude that the full acceptance of the will involve the' reorientation of the education system.”

It had become increasingly obvious since that you could not give to 85 per cent, of the population the same kind of post-primary education that was originally devised for a selected and gifted few, went on Mr McCombs. The increased number of technical high schools met part of the need for a post-primary education of a less academic type. “NOT ENOUGH”

But that was not enough, he added. A large number of children in secondary schools and district high schools were still being compelled to take a traditional academic course for which their abilities did not fit them. The work of the schools was largely dominated by the demands of the university entrance examination, although only a relatively small proportion of the pupils had any intention of entering the university. The changes thus made necessary were known, continued Mr McCombs, but they were not commonly understood. The introduction of accrediting, the substitution of the school certificate examination for the university entrance as the ordinary measure of satisfactory secondary education, the new curriculum with its common core of all_ pupils and its wide range of' optional subjects, secondary school bursaries, increased facilities for aesthetic and practical activities in the secondary schools, vocation guidance—all were a part of the attempt to provide for 85 per cent, of the population a kind of post-primary schooling fitted to their varying abilities and needs. The average New Zealand parent, with some 30 years of freedom of choice of secondary education behind him, would not easily come to tolerate the arbitary drafting of his child from one type of school to another at the age of 11. He was in full agreement with this attitude, said the Minister, but it must be recognised that the policy which had been developing since the beginning of the century in New eZaland had had a definite effect on the average standard of work in the post-primary schools. With the increased percentages of children going on to post-primary schools, only the very dullest pupils, with very rare exceptions, did not go beyond form II (or, as it was called, standard 6). The child of strictly average ability would be found in form II or IV, and the lower end of form 111 would contain children who earlier in the century would never have gone beyond standard 4 or 5.