A CASE FOR INQUIRY

Evening Post, Volume CI, Issue 113, 13 May 1921, Page 6

A CASE FOR INQUIRY

According to Mr. Renner, secretary of the Secondary School Assistants' Association, at least 15 per cent, of the boys .who enter secondary schools 7 should be either at a trade or learning a trade at a technical school. I| this is correct, our system of free education has gone too fast and too far. Free education has been confused with free attendance at a secondary school. As a consequence, the State is losing and the individual is no gainer. The State pays the bill for extended school buildings and more teachers; and the youth wastes one or two years which might ha.ye been given to the acquisition of skill in a trade. Sometimes also there is a greater loss by the permanent diversion of energies into ill-chosen channels, and we have men becoming poor clerks who would otherwise be good carpenters. As a remedy for this state of affairs, Mr. Renner advocates the institution of the poet-primary course which the Minister for Education has planned. The post-primary school is to be a testing-ground or clearing-house, where the pupils will, by the joint efforts of teachers, inspectors, and parents, ba sorted into groups for secondary education, technical training, or trades. The post-primary school will also, in the opinion of its advocates, help to'bridge ths gap now existent between primary and secondary education. The waste of effort to which Mr. Renner has drawn attention certainly calls for remedial action; but the authorities will require to be assured that what they propose.to erect as a. bridge does not become a barrier. It is bad enough to have two self-con-tained systems of education;' but it would be worse if we had three. Multiplication of divisions seems to be a .roundabout way to unity and economy.