SCHOOL-LEAVING AGE

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23945, 12 May 1943, Page 2

SCHOOL-LEAVING AGE

Increase to Fifteen Years LEGISLATION NEXT SESSION Legislation will be introduced at the next session of Parliament to raise the school leaving age from 14 to 15. This information was given to members ol the New Zealand Educational Institute in Christchurch yesterday by the Minister of Education (the Hon. 11. G. R. Mason) and subsequently confirmed by the Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. P. Eraser), himself a former Minister ot Education. Both Ministers agreed that this measure had been long overdue. Speaking at the institute’s diamond jubilee celebrations yesterday, Mr Mason said; "The whole Government is resolved that we must make an attempt forthwith to remedy this situation. We have lagged behind other countries far too long in this respect. I hope that it will only be a beginning, and that at a later date we will be able to go a step further and make the leaving age 16.” The Minister explained that the measure would have been introduced earlier but for the war. Yet in spite of the lack of teachers and classroom accommodation, which had been used as arguments against raising the leaving age to 15, he declared, the Government was determined that in the coming year this would be compulsory. “We are determined that the children in this country shall get all the education that they require,” said Mr Mason. In his speech, the Prime Minister referred to the raising of the school leaving age as “a reform long overdue.” “It has been delayed until we could get sufficient teachers and sufficient classrooms built,” said Mr Fraser. "But we have not been able to build the accommodation for obvious reasons and I very much doubt if we have the required number of teachers yet in our training colleges, but I agree, nevertheless, with the Minister of Education, that the raising of the school leaving age to 15 can no longer be delayed.” The Prime Minister explained that this was only a beginning. “To begin with it will be 15,” he continued, "but I hope that before very long it will be 16. We have lagged behind other countries in this reform, and we do not wish to continue to do that.” Mr Fraser told the teachers that for a time they might have to put up with larger classes and a certain amount of overcrowding in their schools. "But if we are going to achieve this advantage.” raid Mr Fraser, "the members of the teaching profession must be prepared to put up w'ith some disadvantages until such time as \vc can get the teachers and the classrooms.” The delay in the educational building programme, said the Prime Minister. also applied "very tragically” to housing generally. But homo buildmg and school building had had to give way to defence requirements, which included the construction of camps and hospitals, not onlv for the Dominion but for our American ally as well. “It is not an easy problem,” Mr Fraser added, "but we mu=t ask you to try and understand the ‘'situation.”