Co-education—For and Against

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 779, 25 June 1954, Page 20

Co-education—For and Against

S co-education the best system for New Zealand’s secondary schools? This question was discussed by a number of educationists and parents in a symposium published in The Listener in 1950, Now it is being aired again in a radio discussion involving parents, teachers, and young people who have recently left high school, which will be broadcast in a link of the four YA stations, 3YZ and 4YZ, at 11.0 am. on Wednesday, June 30. The programme will originate from Station 4YZ, and those taking part in the discussion will be drawn from the Southland district. At the time of the 1950 symposium in The Listener, opinion was fairly evenly divided among those who ‘favoured co-education and those who preferred the segregation of boys and. girls in separate schools. It was found, for instance, that teachers were inclined to favour the type of school in which they. had done most of their teaching. One parent, a mother of four children, said she was predisposed towards segregation because "early adolescence seems a time when each sex is sufficient unto itself.’ G. W. Parkyn, of the Council of Educational Research, favoured coeducation because he believed that "edu- cation should aim at developing the whole person rather than simply in instructing children in certain scholastic attainments." Professor C. L. Bailey said that "there is certainly no evidence that the co-educational school has a lower standard of scholarship, that its work suffers because of the close association of boys and girls in their daily school life, or that (as is sometimes alleged) the marriage concept is debased through co-education." In the programme Co-education-For and Against, which will be broadcast in the Women’s Session next Wednesday, three separate groups will discuss the subiect. First, a group of parents will have the microphone for ten minutes. They will include Mrs. Bette Young, a well-known local broadcaster; Mrs. Isabel Johnston, the wife of ‘a Presbyterian

minister; and Mr. Wallace Butchers, The chairman of the programme, B. I. Fulton, Principal of Southland Technical College, will then sum up the parents’ conclusions before introducing the next group-the educationists. They will include John Thomson, ‘Rector of Gore High School, and Miss Elsie Nelson, visiting teacher for = Southland Education Board. An unusual feature of the programme is that a group of young people who have only recently left secondary school will also discuss their’ views. These speakers ‘will be Beverley Keane, Beatrix Fisher and Doug Brown. Mr. Fulton will then sum up the different conclusions reached. and attempt to evaluate them from bis point of view as_an education ‘specialist: :