The Daily News. MONDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1922. POST PRIMARY’ EDUCATION.

Taranaki Daily News, 2 October 1922, Page 4

The Daily News. MONDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1922. POST PRIMARY’ EDUCATION.

That the project of establishing post-primary, or junior high schools, should meet with some adverse criticism was only to be expected, simply because it is an innovation, and changes in the educational system are always liable to be viewed with suspicion by those who have grown up under a hard and fast system with which the majority of people have become familiar. Education is just as much a science as surgery or therapeutics. In fact, there is a great similarity in their evolution as the result of research, experiment and application of principles that make for progress in the advantages accruing to mankind. Within the last half century great strides have been made in elucidating and obtaining a proper insight into the best means of improving the whole system of education, from the infant to the university stage, and every fresh development has met with more or less opposition, merely because it has not been properly understood, and that is exactly the position of affairs in relation to the proposed junior high schools, as the Minister made clear in his lengthy explanations given to the High School Boards’ Conference. It is hardly conceivable that misapprehension has arisen after all that has been stated as to the aim and object of this new departure, and there is much force in the Minister’s contention that the Government wanted the New Zealand system not to be one that slavishly followed other countries. When thanking Mr. Parr for his address, Mr. Fraser (Wanganui) said that if the Minister had been able to give his views earlier, much friction would have been avoided. That may be so, but the official explanations of the scheme really left, no room for doubt on the matter, when examined intelligently and impartially. The function of these junior high schools, of which a fair trial of three, for a period of three years, is proposed, js to act as a testing medium for the purpose of discovering for which vocation in life the various pupils are best fitted, and to adapt the teaching to fit in with their bent, or the desire of the parents after consultation with the head teachers. Obviously such a method should, in the main, save much valuable lime in the preparation of pupils for their work in life, and would eliminate from the high schools 'those who are not intended to enter upon professional careers. Practically the process savors of specialising and classifying, thus making education a definite means to a definite goal. The first parting of the ways is made when the pupils reach the age of twelve years, at which the transition stage from the primary teaching comes into operation, and the post-primary course is reached. That course really covers the crucial time in a scholar’s life. At present thirty per cent, of the children do not get through even the primary course, while many of those passing out of the sixth standard, do so at the age of fourteen instead of thirteen. The Minister stated that already he had practically the authority of Parliament to extend the compulsory school, age to fifteen, so that the post-primary course has to be designed to cover a period of three years, besides connecting up with the high school, course. It is established that at least thirty per cent, of the boys passing through, high schools are wasting their time, at great expense to the country and detriment to their future prospects, thus constituting a two-fold evil which the junior high school system should obviate. Very wisely, it would seem, these schools, during the experimental stage, will be instituted to three different communities —one in a city, another in a town of between ten and twelve thousand inhabitants, and the third in a country district where concentration is easily posy

sible. The present system, in which the common mould prevails, does not accord with progressive ideas of the lines on which education should be carried out, and the sole object of the new scheme is to put forward the best for the children, especially in view of the additional year’s compulsory schooling, so that on finishing the school course, those who are not destined for entry into the high schools will be as fittingly equipped as possible for their various vocations, while those passing to the high schools should have no gap to bridge, but be prepared to take their place without a set-back, and the entrance examination should be made such as will ensure this process being satisfactory. It is a common sense scheme well worthy of a fair trial.