NEEDS OF EDUCATION

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 71, 17 December 1928, Page 9

NEEDS OF EDUCATION

CO-ORDINATION LACKING TRAINING FOR EXAMINATIONS Dominion Special Service. Dunedin, December 14. That there is a serious lack of co-ordi-nation between the primary, technical, and secondary branches of education hl the Dominion was the opinion expressed by the principal of King Edward College (Mr. W. G. Aldridge) in the course of the annual report which he submitted at the "breaking-up” ceremony to-day. The facilities . . post-primary education, said Mr. Aldridge, had been extended during the past 20 years. The Minister of Education had been prevailed upon to refer the question of co-ordination to a consultative committee, but the report produced after lengthy deliberation did not seem to have brought reform much nearer. It bad served rather to illustrate what wide differences of opinion still existed, as soon as one sought to translate fundamental principles into practice. For instance, it was generally agreed that education of a post-primary stage should be begun earlier than had been the custom, but attempts to give effect to their finding were found immediately to conflict with the interests and prejudices of constituted authority. Possibly the change might yet come peacefully by the simple extension of a process that was already in operation in Dunedin, namely, the acceleration of pupils through the primary schools. In 1024 the average age of pupils entering secondary schools throughout New Zealand was 13 years and 10 months, and in Otago.it was certainly not less. In the Technical College this year the average age on entry was only 13 years and three months. At first teachers were struck by the immaturity of a number of these pupils judged by theix- power to commence work of the standard the college staff had been accustomed to, but he regarded the change in a most favourable light. If it eontiued it would go far towards meeting the proposals made in ruiiny quarters for post-primary education after the age of 12, and it would do so without upsetting any part of the educational system. Further, as the majority of parents.now agreed in practice to the school-leaving age being fixed at 15, they might look forward to these younger pupils remaining with them for two or three

years, instead of a year less. They intended next year to face seriously in both first and second year courses the special problems which this new phase of the work presented. In. the second year classes they had been fortunate in retaining almost all their best pupils. As a result the second year work had been, on the whole, of quite high quality, and he looked forward to the opportunity of strengthening all their third year courses next year. “As a general rule," said Mr. Aldridge, in conclusion, “there is nothing I more strenuously oppose than the training for professional examinations of all and sundry, and in our first and second year classes there is no such training. I will even go so far as to recommend the cancellation of a free place of a pupil who persists in wasting his time and ours on an examination course, hoping by some miracle to conceal his unfitness from an examiner, but I shall be pleased to make special preparation for matriculation should it be desired with a number of . first-class _ pupils, who have shown their worth in a preliminary technical course.”

STUDENTS OUT OF THEIR DEPTH Dominion Special Service. Nelson, December 14. Mr. C. H. Broad, principal of Nelson College, in the course of his remarks at the prize-giving to-day, referring to the report issued by the Secondary Schools’ Principals’ Association on junior and senior high schools, made reference to two points which, in his opinion, were not sufficiently emphasised in the report. The first point was that under existing conditions the transition from a primary to a secondary school was too sudden and too severe.

The suggested new type of school should, to a considerable extent, remedy this by enabling principals to arrange elementary courses in algebra, geometry, French, and science, instead of the very I full courses they are compelled to adopt at present. With the exception of the brightest pupils, entrants to a secondary school are nowadays out of their depth for a long time, but in a juniorsenior high school the transition would be so gradual that the great majority would not notice it. Another point which he regarded as of very great importance was hardly mentioned in the reports referred to, possibly because the writers were somewhat diffident in dealing with what is known . as “a school spirit,” a term that was frequently misunderstood by the general public, yet this abstraction, “school spirit,” was the chief factor in the formation of character, and it was most highly developed in the secondary schools. It seemed to him, therefore, that the sooner boys came under its influence the better. He thought that we in New Zealand should aim at developing a school spirit similar to that of the English public schools by adopting the best features of those schools, without slavish imitation, and by working on lines suitable to a young country practically without traditions. Dr. Evans, of Wellington, distributed the prizes.