FUTURE OF TECHNICAL SCHOOLS

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 189, 9 May 1934, Page 11

FUTURE OF TECHNICAL SCHOOLS

Education Director’s View “MORE IMPORTANT PART FOR YOUTH’’ The belief that technical education in its widest sense would play a fat more important part in the education of the youth of the future than it did at present was expressed by Mr. N. 1. Lambourne, M.A., Director of Education, in an address to the conference o f the New Zealand Technical School Teachers’ Association in Wellington yesterday. Mr. Lambourne said he could remember the time when the technical school did not rank high in the estimation of the parents and the public. It was through the untiring energy and outstanding ability of the older teachers gathered there that day ano of several others who were no longer in active service that the technical school had built up a reputation that had gained for it honoured recognition in the education system of the Dominion.

The very large institutions, catering for day and evening students, that han grown up in the principal towns were evidence that parents had great con-' fidence in the schools—confidence that had been won not because of tradition and what Lord Percy called “coveted social status,” but because they had met the needs and desires of a large number of young people. The technical schools, including technical high schools, as at present organised, must necessarily contain large numbers of junior students, many of whom would take short courses only and would then disappear to the lower ranks of industry. As the essence of the training was that all students should be brought into contact with realities, it followed that a large amount of equipment must be provided for students who worked at a relatively low level, and who would probably never need the more advanced equipment which had to be provided for other students. On the other hand, the director continued. many students of real ability would take longer courses and after their entry to industry would continue Io attend technical classes so long as they felt that their needs were being met by rhe instruction provided, aud no longer. Importance of Technical Side. It followed, then, that as far as it was possible the equipment and teaching power should be developed at the top to provide worthwhile courses for those who might become leaders of industry, or who at any rate might enrich the whole community by their researches and Inventive power. “Perhaps it is too soon for me to express an opinion, but in the course of my administrative duties I think sometimes that the principals and boards are more concerned with the ‘high’ than with the ‘technical’ part of their designation. It seems sometimes to be forgotten that the technical side is the senior part of the schools; that the day school is preparatory to the evening classes,” Mr. Lambourne said. “Unless this is realised and acted upon there would appear little justification for the establishment of technical schools, because with some further modification in their curricula the secondary schools could provide for the day pupils. This impression may be unwarranted, but It is one that I have felt.” If the technical schools were to develop at the top, it followed that they should not be behind current industrial practice, but they should in the larger centres serve the purpose of a university of technology so far as the resources of the country allowed. They should be places to which industry could refer its problems for solution, and which should demonstrate new ideas and new processes which were discovered in other countries. In older countries it was usual to separate these places of technical education, and to conduct them in separate institutions, as, for instance. In England in junior technical schools, technical institutions for intermediate work, and in schools of the University, as in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle and other places. New Zealand had not yet arrived at that state of density of population or of industrial development to warrant any dissociation, but it might be noted that there were inherent advantages in the system which would not be lost sight of. Apart altogether from consideration of economy in organisation and supervision, it was of the greatest possible value to the young student to be in an atmosphere in which there was an awareness of higher, perhaps of far-off, things, to which he might aspire, and which was a constant incentive to him to intensify his studies. Value of Intermediate School. Referring to the intermediate school or department, the director said that its advantages over forms one and two in public schools were:— (1) The staffing was more generous and the teachers more experienced. (2) The possibility for more generous courses and better classification of the pupils. >(3) Greater opportunity through enriched and diversified courses to explore and try out the inclinations, aptitudes, and capacities of the pupils. (4) More homogeneous groups for teaching purposes, and consequently more rapid progress by the pupils. There was no need to remind the conference, the director said, that the Hadow report on the adolescent re ferred to the desirability of removing children at the age of 11 or 12 from the Influence of the elementary school. The intermediate schools and. de partments that had been established were functioning well, and were highly regarded by the parents. It was possible at present to establish new ones only where little or no capital cost was involved, as, for example, where the' alternative was to build a new school or to add to existing schools.