VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 42, 18 August 1925, Page 14

VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

NOT TECHNICALLY NEGLECTED

The president of tha New Zealand Technical School Teachers' Association (Mr. J. H. Howcll) quoted figures at the annual meeting of that body emphatically refuting the statement that vocational training has been neglected in favour of ordinary and commercial courses. "Let us examine some of the crlticisms which have been recently passed," he eaid.' "The present attitude of the Department towards them is sufficiently shown by the paragraph on the 'relation of secondary and technical education' contained in the report presented to Parliament in 1924,-and it may be well to consider here some of the statements made. It is paid that returns show that about 50 per cent, of the technical day school pupils are taking either a commercial course or a general course leading up to" matriculation. . . . In the four large centres special and expensively equipped technical colleges have been erected, with the object of fostering technical or vocational education in the schools as ordinarily under : stood, yet about half the accommodation of these colleges is occupied by pupils taking general or commercial courses. TECHNICAL INSTRUCTION AVAILED OF. i "As it stands this statement is most misleading, for it rrrust be remembered that in the case of the eight centres given below there is no other public secondary school in the district; and it follows that all pupils who wish to obtain secondary education must attend the technical high school, and, therefore, in thess schools the percentage taking the commercial and general courses will necessarily be very large. This is fcorne out by the following figures, the commercial and general pupils beimj in parentheses following the total number:— Pnkekohe, 231 (205) jHawera, 226 (184); Stratford, 239 (159); Wamjamri (boys), 288 (195); Feilding, 159 (87); Hastings, 194 (174); Westport, 178 (142); Greymouth, 202 (184); totals, 1717 (1330). "Tho percentage taking the commercial and general courses for the above schools is about 77 per cent. In the case of the remaining districts, where there is an ordinary public high school, it is found that the numbers taking the commercial and general courses form a much Bmaller proportion of the whole than the report states. " The actual fig: ures are as follow:— Auckland, 748 (218); Wanganui (girls), 131 (85); Napier, 256 (89); Wellington, 607 (245); Christchurch, 762 (247); Invercargill, 386 (148); Dunedin, 447 (196); totals, 337 (1228). The percentage of the whole taking the commercial and general. course for this group is only 36 per cent.