Letters to the Editor

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 143, 5 July 1937, Page 6

Letters to the Editor

Intermediate Schools Sir. — I understand that in a few days'1 time Mr N. T. Lambourne, Dir« • ector of Education, is coming to Hastings to look into the ma.tter of .the establishment of an intermediate school here. 1 also understand from the repox*ts of the meetings of the .Hawk^'i Bay Education Board published in your journal that this board recommended the department to establish in Hastings . one of these schools. Some months ago a meeting oi the . schoo.-committeemen of Hastings was "held to consider this question. Despite the effort of Mr G. A. Maddison, chairman of the Education Board to make out a case, no concluBive evidence in favour of the establishment of another of the hybrid schopls was fortkcoming. Mr Maddison' s reasons seemed specious : (1) "Hastings should have such a school if Napier has one." (2) "These schools are being establisjied in other countries." . (3) "The change means progress" and. if an educational change of this nature is not made iu this locality, theu Hastings will be branded as unprogressive, The meeting was abortive, for many of those present refrained from voting. The chairman of the board was, and v stiil is, unable to name a single country outside New Zealand in which a tjvoyear separate middle school has been established. The fallacy of his argument that "change necessarily means progress" is still as plain as a pikestaff to most thinking men: We now know that the separate intermediate school under the control of the primary education authority — such as the type at Napier — was formed in New Zealand because of lack of coordination on the administrative side of our educational system. The department wished to follow the example of England and to carry out the xecommendation of the Consultative Committee of the English Board of Education that the child should begin his'postprimary career after standard IV, but at the same time wished to avoid the cry from the education boardg in different parts of New Zealand that would have arisen upon the removal oi' the pupils of standards V and VI from their jurisdiction. The chairman and other meinbers of the. Hawke's Bay Education Board last week attended an address by J)r Kandel, a world authority on Comparative Education. Pr Handel in the courso of his remarks definitely condemned as unsound the "two-yeax unit" es he called the separate intermediate type of school, and Mr Maddison at the conclusion of the address confessed (as he did not do to the school-committee-men of Hastings) that the Napier Intermedifue School was something of tho nature of "an experiment." I venture to suggest that something of the nature of "another educational blunder" would have been a more exact desciiption. It is now clear to us in Hastings that the only sound course open to us is to condemn most strongly further "experiments" of this nature with our children. We axe aware of the weaknessea of the separate intermediate school — the gaps, the bewilderment of the children and the lack of . co-ordination bwtween the intermediate and high schools, to recall only one or two. II the Hawke's Bay • Education Board really has the welfare of our children at heart, and if the break with the primary school must b© made by th# pupils at the age of eleven, then- it i* incumbent upon the board to state clearly why the post-primary education of our children should not/ take plao# at the Hastings High School. . ; This school is not of tbe academio type. Eacilities are present for th# teaching of metalwork, woodwork, art? electricity, science and domestic crafts indeed, since the needs of every. typ# of pupil are properly met, the incor•poration of standards V and VT (if th# break must be made) is the only desirable and logical course to follow. Taxpayers and parents are entitled to ask whether reduplication of these facilities is necessary. And in any case, what are the advantages of the separate type of intermediate school over the incorporated type? It is significant that not once has either the Hawke's Bay Education Board or the Director of Education been able to enlighten us.— Yours, etc,, STUDENT Hastings, July 4, 1937.