Desire To Reduce Schooling Breaks

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30724, 13 April 1965, Page 24

Desire To Reduce Schooling Breaks

(New Zealand Press Association) NELSON, April 12. A smooth transition for pupils from the primer classes right through to secondary school is the step forward in education, the president of the New Zealand Education Institute (Mr G. C. E. Chapman-Cohen) would most like to see.

Mr Chapman-Cohen, who will go out of office next month, said he desired the removal of the existing breaks in the system.

Moves were already being made in this direction with national and local in-service courses where primary and secondary teachers met to discuss mutual problems. An integrated curriculum which meant steady progress from infant classes to form 6 would be his major consideration if he were dealing with the problem, he said. This did not mean rigid uniformity in schools. “Attention must always be given to individuality.” During his term a great deal of work in ancillary services had been done. In this way teachers had been relieved of non-professional tasks. In 80 schools in the Dominion part-time teachers had been appointed where schools had problems in

reading and number classes. These part-time teachers were giving inestimable services, he said. The greatest advance made in education during the year and, he would maintain, during the century, was the introduction of the three-year teachers’ training course to replace the old two-year system, Mr Chapman-Cohen said. The raising of the entrance qualifications to an endorsed school certificate was ensuring the department of more mature students.

Another improvement had been the outline by the institute of a new classification schedule for classes which would ultimately have the effect of reducing overlarge classes. “This will bring us more in line with the United States, Britain and the Scandinavian countries.” This move had so far been brought as far as the Minister of Education, Mr Chapman-Cohen said.