STRONG PROTEST.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 125, 30 May 1933, Page 3

STRONG PROTEST.

KOWHAI SCHOOL. OFFICIAL INTERFERENCE. INTERRUPTION OF COURSE. Addresses and discussion in protest against the Education Department'" recent intimation that the third and more important year of the school course would be discontinued took place at the annual meeting of the Kowhai Junior High School Committee last night. There wu.s a fairly large attendance of parents. The secretary stated that the school would in future be known as the Kowhai Intermediate School. Mr. A. J. Stallworthy, M.P., was elected to preside at the 'meeting. Mr. I W. V. Stilwell, Mayor of Mount Albert, I wais on the platform, and the speakers ! were the principal, Mr. J. P. Wells, Mr. Stilwell, Mr, S. E. Chappell, Mr. Stallworthy and Mr. A, A, Buckley. The principal said that Kowhai was concerned mainly with the child who was not brilliant, but of sound, practical common sense. There were 850 children attending the school, which would seem to ehow that there was a desire by children to stay on, although they were not obliged to sfay. The course gave scope /or leadership and the development of personality. "Retrograde Step." • "It undoubtedly a retrograde step that the Education Department is taking," said Mr. Stilwell. He thought the committee was right in protesting. The fact that' the school had given scope for leadership and had had a wonderful effect in developing initiative and personality, which waft particularly noticeable in scholars who remained for the third year, appeared to him the crux of the school's wholo objective. Mr. Chappell, an ox-chairman of the school committee, said thast he had helped to direct the welfare of the school in the first four and a half yeare of ite existence. It was a disastrous step to reduce the period from three yoare to two. If boua were brought under this regulation, tne school would be turning out unskilled men. The third year gave the scholars the opportunity for vocational choice. He was in favour of a strong resolution being passed opposing the step. There were only a few experimental schools of this kind in the Dominion find he hoped that the thrce-yfiar period would be retained. " Reactionary." Mr. Stallworthy referred to the two •splendid buildings at either end of the district —the Teachers' Training College and Kowhai Junior High School —both of which were now objects of Departnient*l interference. "It is setting at naught the vision that was responsible .for their erection," he said, "by shutting up the one and closing half of the other., The tendencies are reactionary, and must have a detrimental effect on the child." Ho also condemned the abritrary raising of the school age, and said that if the Government had a full sense of responsibility it would not have allowed .the Prime Minister to act as he had done. "Tho Director of Education has spent only one hour in ten years at the school," said the chairman of the committee, Mr. Buckley. "How then is he in a, position to tell us that tho third year should bo cut out of the course? The information from the reports could only inform him that the work was all in favoiir of retaining the third year." He said that there had been many instances of third-year pupils, catching up to fifth formers in the secondary schools. The cost per pupil for capitation a;t Kowhai was only 10/, while at secondary schools it was, at a minimum, &i 10/. Interview With Minister. Two resolutions were passed. The first was: "That the parents and guardians of tho pupils of Kowhai Junior High School beg to enter their strong protest against tho recent Departmental interference with the school, because, by cutting out the third and most important year of tho present course, tho Department is emasculating the present undoubted usefulness of the school; and this meeting further requosts the committee to take steps to interview the Minister of Education and Director of Education and that Sir James Parr bo asked to introduce the deputation."

The other resolution was to the effect that a meeting be held at a near date, and that Sir James Parr be asked to address it on the value of the third year.