HIGHER SCHOOL AGE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 121, 24 May 1932, Page 5

HIGHER SCHOOL AGE.

PUBLIC PROTEST URGED. free education to stop at FIFTEEN ? "GOING BACK 50 YEARS." The Northcote school committee has suggested to the Auckland Primary Schools' Association that a full investigation of the effects of the raising cf tho school age be made, and has expressed the opinion that a public meeting should be organised by the association.

The chairman of tlie committee, Mr. H. Shaw, said that the new policy in education was viewed with very giavc concern. The school was a very pleasant institution to-day, and the younger children wanted to go, and early discipline was thus easy and gentle. The average home could not engage the activities of the child after the fourth year, and in many eases the street was the only alternative. In towns there was the feature of physical danger, as hardly a week passed without some child being knocked over by passing traffic. Thanks to the measures introduced ly Mr. R. J. Seddon it was made possible for the child to go from the primary school to the secondary school right through to the University. Th? democratic step was then taken of making no distinction between classes. All that was being undone now, and cl.isdistinctions were being accentuated. Flic Government was feeling its way and if this went through without strong objection, all free education would stop at 15 years. No work was going to be found for boys and girls, and yet they would not be able to remain at school. The fact that such measures as that of raising the school age were tacked on to money bills, which could not be thrown out bv the Upper House, nd;catcd a planned attack on education. If the threatened 15-year compulsory leaving was enforced, said Mi". Shaw, more than half the children would be deprived of more than a primary education. Bid the people want to revert to the position of 50 years ago, when, wi*l» the exception of a few scholarship boys, all the students at the Auckland C ollege and Grammar School were paid for? Tn those former days most of the men who attained eminence had come from the masses bv means of scholarships.

Legislation could bo upset, said Mr. Sliaw, and when measures detrimental to the children were placed on the Statute Book the people should them removed in a constitutional way. A public protest to Parliament should be made.