FIVE-YEAR-OLDS

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 141, 11 December 1935, Page 13

FIVE-YEAR-OLDS

ADMISSION TO SCHOOL

STATEMENT BY MINISTER

Obstacles in the way of immediate.ly readmitting five-year-old children to the State schools were mentioned by the Minister of Education (the Hon. P. Fraser), when speaking at a fete at the Karori School yesterday afternoon. The difficulties, said the Minister, he hoped to surmount very speedily. Mr. Fraser indicated, however, that the desire to readmit the children at the beginning of the next school year might not be possible of achievement because of circumstances arising out of the educational policy pursued in the immediate past.

So far as the five-year-olds were concerned, the Government's pronouncement had been clear and definite —the Prime Minister (the Hon. M. J. Savage) had expressed the opinion in a way that was beyond any cavil that the five-year-olds were going back to the schools. The Minister of Education and the Education Department had to implement that pledge, which must be kept. There were practical difficulties, and circumstances brought about by the policy of recent years had added to these difficulties.

The desire to admit the five-year-olds at the beginning of the next education year was rendered more difficult by the shortage of teachers. That was a problem that, would have to be solved before the children were readmitted, and he had great hopes of the existing difficulties being surmounted very speedily. There was also the question of the opening of, the training college, and if there were to be more teachers it naturally followed that .there had to be more facilities for training them. He hoped to be in a position to make a pronouncement very soon. .