‘Change In Attitudes,’ In High Schools

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31987, 14 May 1969, Page 32

‘Change In Attitudes,’ In High Schools

(New Zealand Press Association)

TAURANGA, May 13.

A change in attitudes and values of senior students had produced pseudo-university students in secondary schools and the only solution was the establishment of junior colleges, Mr E. F. Hamill, president-elbct of the Post-Primary Teachers’ Association, said in Tauranga today.

Mr Hamill was guest speaker on the last day of the Bay of Plenty conference of the association. “I will regret the passing of secondary schools as I have known them, but it will have to come,” he said.

Today’s affluent society had produced a more sophisticated sixth-form pupil and a behaviour pattern seen in universities a few generations ago was now entering secondary schools. Students were experiencing a restlessness, were searching for an identity, and were creating an element which was not making teaching practice or administration any easier, he said. Mr Hamill said that some schools had tried to meet the challenge by creating school councils and granting privileges to senior students, but while this could be meeting needs at the moment it was not the ultimate answer. “Part of the trouble is that many of the .students come from very high standards of living in their homes, and school conditions contrast sharply with these. Also the inadequacy of sixth-form courses is a source of frustration, as is the fact that the university entrance examination is beyond some of them. Yet we continue to throw them'against this barrier,” he said. I