EDUCATIONAL.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 2494, 17 October 1922, Page 3

EDUCATIONAL.

SCHOOL AGE EXTENDED TO 15 YEARS.

Wellington, Last Night. The Minister of Education was gratified to find that the New Zealand Educational Institute has endorsed his policy of establishing junioY high schools. The secretary of the Institute has forwarded the Minister the following motion which was carried at the last meetng of (lie executive: “That this executive congratulates the Minister on the successful opening of the first intermediate school under the title of junior high school, and trusts he will be encouraged to proceed with the education system which this opening foreshadows.”

The Minister staled to-day that the opinion of the Teachers’ Institute was valuable, because it was the judgment of experienced educationalists. The public, however, was gradually reaching the conclusion that there were certain deficiencies in the education system and that remedies must be secured. The reconstruction of courses of education from 6 to 15_vears of age, which will be effected in the intermediate school system, would, he felt confident, prove the solution of many existing difficulties. The extension of the school age to 15 years must, of course, follow as a complement to the new scheme, which could not be run with watertight compartments as at present. ' “The new system,” said the Minister, “will largely break down the barrier separating the primary and secondary teachers, and will tend to unify the profession. The primary teacher will have a new avenue of promotion open to him, while the secondary teacher of the future will get useful training in the junior high schools, and so entei upon senior high school work with a training which the young University graduate who begins teaching in the secondary schools often lacks.