School leaving plan praised

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33230, 21 May 1973, Page 14

School leaving plan praised

(.\tw Zealand Prtit Association)

AUCKLAND, May 20.

The announcement by the Minister of Education (Mr Amos) that both the minimum and maximum ages for school attendance would be abolished was welcomed by teachers, principals, and school boards in Auckland today.

Mr Amos made the announcement in an address to the conference of the northern region of the secondary school boards’ association in Auckland on Saturday (see Page 1).

Principals would welcome the move, said the president of the Auckland Secondary Schoo's Principals Association (I Ir E. F. Rive).

"Undoubtedly there are youngsters who would be more strongly motivated and more profitably occupied by doing a job even though they are under 15.”

Suspensions and other difficulties were often the result of pupils who were at school against their will, and who were un-co-operative because they felt school was irrelevant to them, he said. "And it is a foolish rule that a youngster who has left [school cannot return after he is 19.”

i The president of the nothem region of the Secondary School Boards' Association (Mr G. T. Wood): "This is starting to treat people as people." Any blanket ruling about when pupils should leave school would be bound not to suit some pupils, he said. LOOPHOLE FEARS Miss Charmaine Pountney, chairman of the Auckland region of the Post Primary Teachers’ Association, while welcoming the Minister’s statement, expressed fears that the abolition of the school leaving age could be used to “gloss over” some of the inadequacies of the secondary system. Troublesome pupils could be got rid of, instead of greater efforts being made to ensure that the schools provided adequately for their needs, she said.