SCHOOL CADET TRAINING

Press, Volume C, Issue 29680, 25 November 1961, Page 14

SCHOOL CADET TRAINING

Referendum Next Year

The continuation of cadet training would be tbe subject ■of a referendum to be held by the Post-primary Schools’ Teachers’ Association early next year, the principal of the Papanui High School (Mr L. B. Newton) told the board of governors at a meeting. A letter from the Christchurch meeting of the Religious Society of Friends urged the abolition of cadet training at the school. The letter said the meeting considered cadet training to be morally wrong and educationally unsound.

Mr Newton said parents who wanted their sons excused from cadet training on religious grounds were considered. There were 11 pupils, who, for conscientious or physical reasons, were excused. Five or six of these were excused for religious reasons. "Four of these were prepared to join provided they were in a noncombatant unit.”

“It is an unsound practice and one which leads nowhere,” said Mr J. Sturrock. He said that in 1953 cadet training had cost £44,300 and today that price would almost be doubled ‘This would go a long way to building three or four new schools, or assisting underpaid secondary school teachers,” he said.