Junior High School.

Hokitika Guardian, 3 October 1922, Page 2

Junior High School.

OPENED BY HON. PARR. "hv telegraph— peb press association) AUCKLAND, Oct. 2. The Kcwliai ,Junion High School was opened by Hon. Mr Parr to-dav. The Minister characterised the occasion as a red letter day in the history of education in New Zealand. There h:ul been talk of ibis new system injuring primary and secondary education, hut such criticism was offered only by illinformed people. A large prevent age of the children were at. present going through courses quite iinsuited to I heir -again] needs, whereas in the juicer high schools they would be tried « ill by different courses, and given a course of instruction to which they were best adapted. Bright children would not lie farced to go slow to keep pace with dull ones, and the latter would not he left behind, as at present; for it would In* demonstrated they were not dull at all, only different. Let them try our new idea, and experiment, and not slavishly copy other countries, by evolving a system of education that would peculiarly ho adapted to the needs of children in their own country. Speaking at the opening of a new primary school, Mr Parr repudiated the charge’ that Auckland was being favoured in the expenditure on education. ; Tie characterised the charge as a slun- j dor, saying that in no other centre had j over-crowding been so bad as there. Tie had lieen ashamed of the way in which children had been herded together in Auckland schools. This was flu* result of the fact I hat the population there had increased 45,000 in a decade.