PROBATIONARY CHILDREN

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 10612, 10 June 1920, Page 4

PROBATIONARY CHILDREN

QUESTION OF EDUCATION. ACTION BY MINISTER. Acting on the- protest raised by certain sonool committees, the Auckland Education Board recently represented to' the Hon. C. J. Parr (Minister for Education) that the public school is not the .proper place to send probationary children, from the industrial or .probationary home fur their education, mist month. 1 pointed objection wusi taken to this system by tour school committees and their respective headmasters, who urged that Jt was not in the interests of a school that kO or 30 children from an industrial home should be BCJtf there; as, in some cases suen children were of low mentality and had 'a. bad ■ influence on the diameters oi thei other children. The Minister stated to- a “Times - ’ representative yesterday tliat ho had been in toiuxuuuicaupu with his departmental officers on the matter and it had been decided that the practice of sending-these delinquent children to the public schools must cease. Ho was making special provision for-the education of such children at t-ho homo itself. Their education, would not ho neglected. He was making .arrangements to obtain for the Auckland Probationary Home a house-master who would have tho necessary qualifications for dealing with this class ot pupil. “It must not be understood,” said Mr Parr “that innocent orphans such as the influenza orphans are included in this now arrangement. The department is hoarding these children out in suitable homes; and there is no reason why these who are well-behaved boys and girls should not go "o the public schools. The State should see that they have every possible chance.'’’