RUSH FOR "FREE" PLACES

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 146, 17 December 1913, Page 10

RUSH FOR "FREE" PLACES

— AT LOCAL SECONDARY SCHOOLS. SOME FRANK COMMENT. A local authority on education matters has informed The Post 'that there is every prospect of the scramble for "free places" at the Girls' College being just as acute this year as last. "So far very little, if anything, has been done to mitigate the difficulty," the critic added, "nor will anything be done until something like co-ordination between primary and secondary education becomes a reality. As far as Wellington is concerned the secondary schools are unsympathetic. Especially is this the case with the Girls' College, where there is what may be termed an Infant Department, children attending who are as young as eight years, possibly younger. I do not contend that these should be at a primary school, but they are certainly not fit subjects for a secondary school, and should not be there to the exclusion of girls who became entitled to a free place by virtue of having obtained a proficiency certificate. I can prove that the free place pupil is less acceptable than the paying one. The Department, when appealed to to settle the point, simply suggested that scholarship winners should have prior claim, then free-place winners, and lastly proficiency certificate winners, leaving the matter much where it was last year. |S "The College .Governors at one of their meetings, I believe, stated that preference would be given to the younger free-place winners. This would be grossly unfair to children who possibly, through slower development or a bout of illness, failed to pass the examination till, say, they were fifteen. My experience is that these more mature children do better work when they reach the secondary schools than do those who enter before that age. "The whole concern is a chaos and needs a charge of dynamite. The Department seems afraid to take a decided stand or to find money to provide sufficient accommodation for all ; the secondary school authorities are opposed to the free-place system, at anyrate the Wellington College Governors are, and the primary school pupils between the two come to the ground. The question as to whether the proficiency certificate is not often won too easily is beside_ the question at issue. Even when this is remedied, and the number gaining them is reduced by 20 per cent, or 60, the matter is not settled, , and, as I said before, never will be till the two systems are co-ordinated. They are separate water-tight compartments at present, absolutely antipathetic. "Teachers are well aware that a good many pupils go- to the secondary schools with no intention of staying any length of ttme — some leave after a few months. They simply want to be able to say they have been to Wellington College or Girls' College. In this particular I sympathise with the secondary schools. But, surely, some means could be devised to check this. Again, a considerable number are unfitted, educationally, for taking up secondary work."