SECONDARY SCHOOLS

Hokitika Guardian, 16 May 1921, Page 3

SECONDARY SCHOOLS

CONFERENCE OF ASSISTANTS. WELLINGTON, May 13 A special committee of the Secondary Schools’ Conference recommended as follows: — Tliat as soon as possible there should be appointed in each university college a Professor of Education who should not be also the principal of the training college. That the Department should be asked to give recognition to the Diploma ot Secondary Education prposed to be issued bv Canterbury College, and to any similar diploma. That more use should be made of the system of associated teachers in secondary schools.

That approval be expressed with the general principle of having heads ot departments in large secondary schools. That all first appointments to staffs of secondary schoools should be probationary for a period of one year. Motions embodying the foregoing

were carried. It was decided that the examination requirements fdr girls were too heavy. In view of the fact that manual work was required of junior free place pupils, it was suggested that more marks should be allowed in the examination on the manual side. It was proposed that home science should lie abolished, and elementary hygiene and chemistry be substituted. It was further suggested that the examination programme in mathemetics should be lightened for

girls. Dealing with the modification of the primary school system, the report of the primary school system, tlie report of the committee appointed stated that considerable feeling existed against the establishment of different types of schools on the ground that it would set up class distinctions and promote jealousies and rivalries between the v types. Pupils adopting different lines of study should be trained alongside each other in the same school. Remits were carried that the primary school course should he brought to an end when the pupils reached a standard of education corresponding approximately to the present" Standard V. ; that it be modified to perini pupils reaching that standard in general about the age of 12; that a post-primary course of instruction be provided in various centres according to local needs by means of schools existing or to be established, including a more or less academic course in rural or agricultural, commercial and domestic courses. A report dealing with the regulations affecting secondary education was adopted. The Conference expressed approval of the grading scheme, and suggested that each year of service in the Expeditionary Force should count for two years of superannuation, also that larger grants he made to single men and women with dependants.