NATIONAL SCHOLARSHIP AGES

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 223, 21 June 1928, Page 10

NATIONAL SCHOLARSHIP AGES

Sir, —There is one aspect of Government retrenchment which, so far, has passed unnoticed. I refer to the lowering of the age for both junior and senior national scholarship examinations. This year the age limit for the junior is twelve In previous years it has been thirteen. To be equal to scholarship work at twelve is young. It means that a child will have to pass, from the infants to the first standard at six, ami would have to start school at four and a half or five years of age. Now, how many children at country schools can start their schooling as early as five? Many go the long weary trudge at five, but their attendaance is often irregular owing to bad weather and bad roads. This lowering of the age is a direct

hit at country children. It would be interesting to know how many children in all the country schools in New Zealand will be equal to scholarship form this year at the age of twelve. Any amount of town children will, I grant you, because they can start their schooling so young with the free kindergartens, so it simply means that the town children will carry off most of the scholarships. Seeing that they have already the free place, what does the scholarship mean to them? —£s for a new saddle, a gramophone, a first deposit on a bicycle. But what does a scholarship mean ‘to the farmer? He will be able to educate his children. I have five children. The eldest got a scholarship under the old conditions at 13 years, of age,, but he cannot now qualify for a senior scholarship because the qge has been lowered. The next boy is in every way equal to scholarship standard, but will-be thirteen just before tiie examination. The same things apply to the other children. The only thing for me to do in order to educate the children will be to throw up the farm and live in town, where they will use their free places for their free education up to nineteen. And yet politicians wonder why ”eonle flock to the towns. Why can they not make it easier for country children to get secondary education? The only tiling the country people can do is to limit the family to one or two children, and then the task of education can be met more easily. If economy must be enforced, is it necessary to give free education up to the age of nineteen? If the Department limited the age of free placers to seventeen, there would be a distinct economy. Look at the students in the secondary schools who are eighteen and seventeen, and in the sixth form. They are the sons and daughters of wealthy men, doctors, lawyers, and rich tradespeople. Why should they have free education in those later years, while country children are now to be starved for it?

I hope those parents whose children are this year prevented by the new age rule from sitting for the scholarship examination will show at the forthcoming election the opinion they hold of the Minister of Education.—l am, etc., BITTER PARENT. June 16.