UNWISE MOVE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 562, 20 June 1933, Page 7

UNWISE MOVE

SUGGESTION OF INTERMEDIATE SCHOOLS NOT FAVOURED. ADVERSE COMMENT.. The executive of the New Z'ealand Educational Institute has prepared a statement in which it expresse-s the opimon that pursuance of the move•ment for establishing intermediate schools under .the regulations recently published is inadvisable. It is urged th'at the country is in a -state of financial embarrassment, and that the establishment of the intermediate school system under the conditions obtaining can only be effected at the expense of the existing' junior high schools and the already nnancially strained prim'ary system. The exclusion of the five-year-olds renders reorganisation difficult, in the opdnion of the executive. The suhsti-

tution of a two-year for a three-year course is not regarded as beiing in the best interests of the children, nor in acc-ord with th'e accepted educational policy of England and other leading educational countries, and ip inconsistent with the policy fornferly advanced by the Education Department and approved by the Institute. The removal of pupils from? forms 1 and 2 from the charge of senior teachers, it is stated, is not in the best [ interests of th'e children. It is asserted that the regulations are inequitahle and unjustifiahle as regards I the pi-oposed staffing and salaries scale'.

"Even stronger reasons against the ■pudsuit of the present policy are to be found in the field of organisation and administration," a&serts the institute s executive. "It h'as long been recognised by those concerned with education that the greatest hindrance to eff'ective working is the division of the whole w-ork under sepa-rate authorities. The barrders that exist between the pnmary, secondary, and technical ■schools are the source of many evils, and. make it impossible' that the education system -c'an be worked to the best effect. Education is, or ought to be, a continuous process of groiwth; the harriers referred to impose checks dnd hindrances to the process that ought to be removed. "The first essential is the setting up of a -single auth'ority to control all

tne educational effort .of each local area. The benefits to be gained from such an arrangement are obvious. The process of education would go on smoothly in accordance with the needs of the individual pup.il, without the disastrous 'breaks' that -now occur between primary and secondary or priniary and technical, or, under. the new system between primary and intermediate -and secondary or technical. For these and other reasons vthe institute is firm in the opinion that pursuit of the present policy at the present time is unwise dn the extreme, and may well put hack th'e clock of real progress in education for a generation."