FARMING EDUCATION

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 957, 28 April 1930, Page 8

FARMING EDUCATION

RECOMMENDATIONS MADE CULTURAL TRAINING FIRST “While heartily endorsing the policy of the Minister in the direction of giving an agricultural bias to the education system, in order to bring it more into line with New Zealand requirements, the council is emphatically of the opinion that education up to the age of 15 or 16 should be broad and cultural in character, and that no purely vocational work should t>® undertaken until after that age." These are the opening terms of • report on agricultural education, which has been prepared by the council of the Auckland Education Society and forwarded to the Minister of Edocatlon. It will also be submitted to members at the annual meeting of the society on Wednesday evening. Continuing, the report reads: “With a view to breaking down existing prejudices against farm occupations, the council urges that head teachers of schools be consulted by the Mini®* ter as to ways and means whereby the schools can be used to combit such prejudices.** The council recommends that agricultural high schools, similar to th« Feilding High School, should be established in the neighbourhood of tb® larger centres. That the Farmers Union, agricultural and pastoral associations, the National Dairy Assod* tion and the fruitgrowers’ and kindred associations, be invited to join i® setting up an organisation for placing boys with suitable farmers and assisting them to settle eventually on the land, formed a further recommendation. Favour is also shown in the pro motion of “farm projects,” as in tbs United States and Canada, and t® some extent in Taranaki and Wang® r nui, in order to stimulate interest i® country life on the part of boys and girls. The Government «- urged to establish “group settlements” in suit* able localities.