CRITICISM BY TEACHERS

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21860, 13 August 1936, Page 5

CRITICISM BY TEACHERS

INTERMEDIATE SCHOOLS

NEGLECT OF OTHER PUPILS FEARED Fear that too much concern with intermediate schools may lead to neglect of other parts of the New Zealand educational system is expressed by the executive of the New Zealand Educational Institute in a circular just issued. The institute states that present indications suggest that the establishment of more intermediate schools is likely. The institute states that its attitude can be summed up in the saying, “First things first.” The preoccupation with the needs of those children of 11 years and over who were to be taught in the intermediate schools might lead to the relative neglect of those children of these ages who remained in the primary schools and of the great body of children under 11 who would be unaffected by the change. “It is a commonplace that the younger the child the greater his susceptibility to environmental influences, and consequently the greater his need for the best possible conditions for living and learning,” the institute states, “Yet precisely the opposite principle has been embodied in our school organisation. The six-year-old is taught in much larger classes than the 16-year-old, his school building is almost invariably inferior and frequently much less healthy, and he is relatively starved of educational material in the way of equipment and books. The primary teaching service is firmly of the opinion that reform should begin here, and would feel itself forced to oppose the establishment of further intermediate schools if this in any way hindered or interfered with efforts on behalf of the younger children in our primary schools.”

Investigation Being Made

The actual value of the kind of education provided in existing intermediate schools was variously assessed by different observers. Because of this the institute welcomed the action of the Minister for Education (the Hon. P. Fraser) in agreeing to its request to authorise an independent survey by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research. Should it be shown by the investigation that the intermediate schools were catering more adequately for the needs of children of 11 years and over than Forms I. and 11. of primary schools there was a further important question to settle. The question was how far the advantage observed inhered in the intermediate school type of organisation itself, and how far it was attributable to the more generous staffing and more adequate equipment given to these schools. A very large body of teaching opinion was confident that, given smaller classes and suitable equipment, primary schools could do just as good educational work as the intermediate schools. The importance of a course lasting not less than three years in intermediate schools: the need for the schools themselves, wherever possible, to be separate institutions not linked to a post-primary school, and the importance of their being controlled by education boards and not by post-primary school boards of governors, are also emphasised. The circular calls attention to the position of decapitated primary schools, particularly in the grade of assistants in the infant departments.