The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. MONDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1931. SECONDARY EDUCATION.

Hokitika Guardian, 5 October 1931, Page 4

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. MONDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1931. SECONDARY EDUCATION.

In the course of his reply to a deputation from the New Zealand Federation of Teachers at Wellington last week, the Minister of Education declared that while he had no intention of doing away with secondary education, there were a large number of boys and girls who go to secondary schools and who came away without having received any benefit. It is generally lecogni'-ed that economies in education are clearly necessary, but these should be carried out in such a manner that the least possible hardship or deprivation of privilege will fall upon the children themselves. That is a contention from which very few will dissent. If this formula be taken as the basis of the economies to be applied, the public should have no reason to feel aggrieved. There has been a good deal of loose thinking and emotional phrase-making about the> free-plaee system. The fundamental justification -for it is that it enables a boy or girl who is deserving of being given a secondary education course, but whose parents cannot afford it, to obtain it. This is a privilege which eve;yone will endorse, and which none would wish to see removed, 'for the principle of it is wholly commendable. In the administration of the system, however, the principle has been departed from. Children who have no aptitude for a secondary school course have been allowed to take it up only to droo it after a year or so at a college. The examination test has been gradually relaxed until children now swarm into the secondary schools who would certainty have been barred had they had to qualify under the original standards. The result has been a co responding relaxing of the matriculation standard, and hence of the educational* standard of students entering the university. All this means waste—waste of money, of time, and of energy. By

stopping it, the taxpayers will be saved a great deal of money, and nobody will suffer.i Mr Masters has not yet indicated how lie proposes to eliminate it, but lie might well apply himself to the question of laising very materially the- standard of qualification for free places at secondary schools. It should be clearly understood, as it was in the beginning; tint free secondary education is not for all and sundry, but for those who are fit f.jr it, and the same principle should apply to the system of free university education, where also there is much unnecessary waste.