AGRICULTURAL COURSES

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 187, 10 May 1928, Page 13

AGRICULTURAL COURSES

TEACHERS’ SUGGESTIONS

At the conference of the Technical School Teachers’ Association yesterday, the following recommendations of the special committee in reference to agricultural courses in the larger urban schools were adopted : — 1. That agricultural courses should be conducted in the larger towns of the Dominion, or within 20 miles thereof at a place conveniently served by railway, to provide instruction particularly for town boys and those of its immediate precincts with a desire for rural and kindred occupations. 2. That in view of the future calling of the pupils the courses should contain a reasonable proportion of work of a practical nature on the land and in suitably equipped workshops and laboratories, corresponding with the’preliminary courses given- to boys who intend to take up, say, engineering trade work. 3. That the boards and the Education Department should be prepared to spend a corresponding amount on the provision of facilities for agricultural as on those for trade training. . 4. That the area of land provided might be small where the roll numbers are small, but should range up to 30 acres where the enrolment of boys is considerable, so as to allow work to be carried out under practical field conditions. (Note: This does not allow to any extent for running live stock on the school farm, but instruction in this important section of the work could , be carried out fairly satisfactorily by visits to saleyards, agricultural shows, and stud farms.) 5. That the committee recognises that the best work can be carried out where the right agricultural environment is provided as in the Feilding Agricultural High School, and considers that several schools of this type might profitably be established in both islands. 6. That the work of the agricultural course should be co-ordinated with that of the nature study and agricultural classes of the primary schools on the one hand and as far as possible with the work of the Massey and Canterbury Agricultural Colleges on the other.