UNDER AGE.

Auckland Star, Issue 154, 2 July 1934, Page 5

UNDER AGE.

SCHOOL ADMISSIONS. UNFAIR PREFERENCE ALLEGED CIRCUMVENTING THE LAW. An aspcct of the school-age controversy that has been missed by both sides is the enforcement of the prohibition of entrance to school of children below the new legal age limit. There are numbers of parents solicitous for their children's future welfare, who regard the lose of a year or part of a year after the age of five as a handicap to progress —as something which will keep their children back in educational advancement, and place tliem at a future disadvantage. Inquiries have shown that the commonest device to overcome the age restriction is a visit to the schoolmaster with a request for a clsd to be allowed to attend school and work without enrolment until it reaches the prescribed time when it can become an enrolled, pupil. Under the Education Department's regulation such procedure is not allowed, but parents have a lever, and they not infrequently use it. If their request-is refused, some of them state openly that the child will be taken to a neighbouring school, where opportunity for entrance will be afforded, and the child will then continue his future course at the other institution.

Headmasters are faced in some suburbs with the prospect of their schools falling in grade, with subsequent transfers and reductions in staff. The maintenance of the status of the school is with them a very important mattei, as it is also with committees, whose maintenance allowances are based to a laige extent on average attendance. So it is stated that in some cases the attendance of under-age pupils is being "winked at" by those in charge, though there would be serious trouble if any eucli cases were discovered by inspectors during their one or two visits per annum. A citv business man quotes a ca.>e. which" he considers unfair to his own

boy, under age, who lias been refused entrance at a suburban school. A playmate, three weeks younger, lias the privilege of attendance at a neighbouring institution, and the aggrieved parent considers his child will be left behind in the educational race of the future through the unfair preference accorded to the lad's mate. Another case is quoted where two under-age children of school committeemen are accorded facilities for attendance. Competition for Pupils. Teachers interviewed admit that there is foundation for the belief that in some cases the new age law is being circumvented, but they either know nothing of any actual examples or they decline to discuss the subject further than to state that while the age restriction lasts it is unfair to degrade schools that will recover on its repeal. One committee-

man stressed the seriousness of this degrading as the reverse edge of the economv axe, since it further reduces staffs and salaries that had already been reduced. He, too, had heard of underage children being allowed entrance, but considered that, as it did not increase the average attendance, but only gave a school an assurance of future pupils, it was not worth legislating about. He deprecated the competition for pupils which is now known to !>e croing on in districts where children are oecoinhig fewer, and considered that, if parents were willing to send children at the age of five, and thus give the children a chance for earlier advancement, then no fuss should be made, -provided they were not enrolled. If teachers had the interests of their schools and of their jobs sufficiently at heart to undertake additional work, well, that was a matter for parents and teachers alone.