NO CHANGE IN AGE TO START SCHOOL

Press, Volume C, Issue 29621, 18 September 1961, Page 13

NO CHANGE IN AGE TO START SCHOOL

(New Zealand Press Association;

WELLINGTON, Sept 17. The Government would not consider promoting legislation to enable five and six-year-old children to be excluded from school, the Minister of Education (Mr Tennent) said yesterday. Mr Tennent was referring to a leading article in the Auckland School Committees’ Association’s journal. "Parents have long been sble to take it for granted tnat. if they so wished, they could send their children to school at five.” said Mr Tennent. “Anyone who remembers the uproar over the exclusion of five-year-olds in the 1930 s will have some idea of what the public reaction would be if they were denied this right. "Apart from this, I believe that we would be depriving many thousands of children of educational experiences that are quite essential at their age and stage. To dispense with schooling at the infant school s age is really quite unthinkable. “The idea is suggested as a solution of primary school faffing and building problems. As I have said on many occasions, the staffing problems are certainly real and the Government is making vigorous efforts to solve them. But we do not face d fficulties of anything like the magnitude that would give some colour of justification for the suggestion that has been made. "I emphasise again that the department’s shortage figure of 700-800 is not a figure of classes without teachers. For purposes of its supply and demand schedules, the de-

partaient includes as part of the shortage hundreds of superannuated teachers and married women who are serving only to help the schools. “Ideally, the schools would not have to depend on these teachers, but it should not be assumed that they are poor teachers. On the contrary, some of them are among the finest teachers the country has ever had,” Mr Tennent said.