STAYING AT SCHOOL

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29830, 24 May 1962, Page 14

STAYING AT SCHOOL

“Encouraged, Not Forced”

(NZ. Press Association) PALMERSTON NORTH, May 23

“If New Zealand makes the conditions to encourage mediocrity, it will get mediocrity,’’ the headmaster of the Ross Intermediate School. Palmerston North. Mr F H. Clift, said today. Mr Clift has been at Ross Intermediate for six years. He will soon retire

“if we want to produce able men and women we must have the conditions which wil] encourage people to excel.” he said When a boy of 13 was able to earn £l5 a week during the school holidays, as had happened recently to a pupil at the school he said there was little incentive to stay at school and go on to university or to sacrifice his leisure time.

"Children should be encouraged but not forced to stay at school until they are 15 16 or 17.” Mr Clift said “The basic idea of the political administration is to give equal opportunities to all when compiling the school leaving age But it is not givmg equal opportunity to the 1 per cent who may spend the last two years at school building up resentment against authority “They go out into the community badly equipped for life in the adult world compared with those who have not built up resentment.” he said. Mr Clift said it was better to let the "rebel types” go to work and come back to school if they wished.