JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 313, 30 September 1926, Page 10

JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL

DIFFICULTIES ATTENDING NEW SYSTEM SERIOUS EFFECT IN COUNTRY By Telegraph.—Press association. Blenheim, September 29. ■ In reph* to a deputation which spoke of the difficulties surrounding the introduction of the. junior high school svstem in Marlborough, the Hon. R. A. Wright (Minister of Education) said that lie did not wonder that school committees found themselves in difficulties in regard to the proposal, for, after all, it was a new proposition in New Zealand. It was just as well to admit at the outset that probably no one in the Dominion knew much about it, except what they had read in books in regard to the operation of the system in the United States and Canada’. The whole thing was largely experimental as far as New Zealand was concerned, so that it was no wonder that difficulties and uncertainties had arisen.

It was quite obvious from what bad been said that the scheme was going seriously to interfere with some of (lie smaller’schools. Taking standards A 7 and VI from some of them practically meant that they would be wrecked. That was a point which would have to be considered, and the onlv escape lie could see was that there must be a concentration of the pupils left behind at a central school. He was not going to commit himself and declare that that was the policy which would be followed, but he would sav that he could see nothing else for it, It meant that there would be one decent school in place of three or four small ones.

“If the junior high school scheme proves unworkable here, we can soon return to the present system,” added the Minister.