DEMAND FOR EDUCATION

Evening Post, Volume CI, Issue 54, 4 March 1921, Page 10

DEMAND FOR EDUCATION

MUST PAVE 'THE BEST.

The inability of the Wellington Girls' College to meet the demands made upon it, the Minister of Education (the' Hon. C. J. Parr) informed a Post reporter yesterday, is proof of the shortsightedness and neglect of the past 15 or 20 years in respect to educational buildings, and also of the leeway be has somehow to make up. Luckily, in the case in question, temporary arrangements have been made so that the children will not suffer. "This rush for secondary education is indicative of the times," he added. "Every parent now-a-days is anxious to give his boy or girl the best education, and is willing to make large personal sacrifices to do so. Secondary schools. to-day are just as much the people's schools as are the primary Schools. My difficulty as Minister is,- of course, to finance the largo programme of free secondary education to which the country years ago committed itself. It is rather wonderful that in this country there are about 53 per cent. of our children who, after going through the primary school, manage to take a post-primary course ir the high schools, technical schools, or other secondary institutionsi'prcmcled. And this with no compulsory law! This figure nob only proves the strong desire for higher education, but also the general high level of prosperity which enables parents to keep their children at school up to 17 or 18 years of age."