Change in school’s role

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33445, 29 January 1974, Page 18

Change in school’s role

■ By our education reporter i

A change in the role of the country’s only State-run school for backward boys will be accelerated as a result of a decision to sell much of the .’>7l-acre farm attached to the school. ■ The Department of Education is more intent on training boys at the Campbell Park School at Otekaieke. ■North Otago, in a course of

education which will equip them to take their place in the urban community. The need for the farm when the school was set up in 1908 is no longer relevant. Most of the school’s 120 pupils are drawn from urban areas and it is io these areas that most return. This is in contrast to the earlier days of the institution when many undertook farm . work and large numbers went from the school to other

State institutions. The isolation of the school —l3O miles from Dunedin and 30 miles from Oamaru — i has been criticised recently as teachers and welfare ■ groups have recognised the ! need for more urban-oriented ’ training. The officer for special education in the head office of the Department of Education (Mr D. H. Ross) said yesterday that the decision to

sell part of the schools farm was part of a review of the school’s programme fo. senior pupils. The review, he said, did not mean “revolution,'' rather a change of emphasis to give more pre-trade training The New Zealand Educa tiona! Institute, which has had a long-standing policy of opposition to the isolation of the school is also reviewing its position.