END OF SCHOOL YEAR

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 765, 11 September 1929, Page 7

END OF SCHOOL YEAR

SUGGESTED FOR AUGUST BOYS’ TECHNICAL TRAINING (From Our Resident Reporter] WELLINGTON, Today. In his presidential address to the annual conference of the New Zealand Technical Education Association in Wellington yesterday, Mr. 11. S. W. King, of Auckland, suggested that the school year should end in August. “For some years there have been difficulties in placing in employment pupils leaving school, and any steps which we can suggest to facilitate the transfer of pupils from school to employment will be valuable to the community,” said Mr. King. “Recently various chambers of commerce have taken an active interest in this problem, and have opened bureaux for finding employment for boys. Difficulties have arisen from the fact that the demand for hoys is greatest In August and September, which is just the time when school work is most important, and pupils cannot leave school without sacrifice. If the school year ended in August, and all examinations took place at that time, as with the teachers’ examinations, boys and girls would complete various stages in their education just when the demand for them in industry is greatest. I would like to ask the conference whether the educational year must end in December, as it has always done in New Zealand, or whether it considers it possible to adjust it to the industrial year.”

Mr. King also suggested that junior technical high schools might be established in New Zealand, as in other countries, in order that a lull technical training could be given pPior to their being taken into trades as apprentices. The technical schools did not get the pupils until they were 14. with the result that only a very small percentage entered upon three-years’ courses. Technical school accommodation was already well taxed, but junior technical schools might be established. The suggested scheme of postprimary reorganisation adopted by the New Zealand Technical School

Teachers’ Association at its meeting in May was outlined by Mr. King. If the Minister’s reorganisation proposals had to be gradually brought into force,

it would be wise for the conference to draw his attention to the success which had followed the creation of junior technical schools in Victoria, and to the fact that in such circumstances Mr. Frank Tate’s report on post-primary education specially recommended post-primary schools of special character, such as junior technical schools. The Minister could safely be asked to establish one junior technical school in each of the four large centres under the direct control of the Technical School Board. Many boys educated in technical colleges had found the training of the greatest value when later they followed agricultural pursuits.