CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 40, 17 February 1944, Page 4

CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS

SECONDARY EDUCATION

(To the Editor)

I wish to add my protest to that of parents of girls so unfairly and in the opinion of one with lons ex perience in secondary school admin istration, illegally excluded from the Auckland Grammar School. If the action of the principal and the board 111 arrogating to themselves the right to impose a further qualifi cation test on applicants alreadv fully qualified under the Education Department's regulations is allowed to go unchallenged, then a very p er nicious thing will have entered our public secondary school system Obviously, when enrolments exceed the accommodation of a school some method of allotting placed must be adopted. All children who hold primary school certificates are equally qualified for admission and it is clearly the duty of those' con trolling the school to make their selection on an impartial and impersonal basis. This basis might have been priority of enrolment, place of residence, or, most fair of all, a bal lot. While one can understand the" motives prompting those responsible in their endeavour to retain for their own school all the brightest pupils and to push the rest into Northcote or some other high school, it certainly comes as a shock to find that those charged v/ith important public duties can be so lacking in a sense of what is fitting. Arguments as to the reliability of the test used are not to the point at all. The use of any educational test as a basis' of admission is a gross attempt to advantage the institution in defiant of the rights of the children and parents concerned, and should not be tolerated. I trust that some outraged parent will render a public service by seeking legal redress. F. A. MARTm.

Henderson. It is gratifying to learn through the Press that the Prime Minister has promised accommodation for secondary education for the girls turned out of the Auckland Girls' Grammar School "with the least possible delay." What is meant by "least possible delay" remains to be seen, but in view of Ministerial promises optimism is hardly justified. My daughter has been temporarily placed in an intermediate school and is most unhappy. She feels it is indeed a hard road she has to travel to get her matriculation in four years time under the new accrediting system. Will these girls who have been so unjustly treated have any consideration shown them at that vital climax to their secondary school education? This I think should be settled now, not four years hence when this disgraceful state of affairs will be forgotten by all but the 80 girls concerned. Lastly, do the parents of girls in standard VI. in the primary school and form 11. intermediate, intending them to go forward to the Auckland Girls' Grammar School next year, realise that if proper secondary education facilities are not provided now, their daughters will be treated just as unfairly as these SO girls this year. ANXIOUS MOTHER.