TECHNICAL COLLEGES

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 108, 10 May 1938, Page 13

TECHNICAL COLLEGES

RAPID GROWTH

WHAT OF THE FUTURE?

"Is technical education, as it has developed in New Zealand, really understood either by our worst critics or our would-be best friends?" asked Mr. L. R. R. Denny, M.A., F.R.Hist.S., in his presidential address to the annual conference of the New Zealand Technical School Teachers' Association, which began today and will end on Thursday afternoon.

"Year after year, visitors, especially to the large colleges on their open days, are heard to remark that they had no conception of the scope and complexity of the work they undertake, especially in the evening departments. Their rapid growth and their popularity has drawn criticism upon them, as though this in itself was a ground of complaint," said Mr. Denny.

"They are, all of them comparatively recent; none existed before 1900, and they did not attain technical high school status until 1914. They grew up as a protest against the dominance of post-primary education by the academic high school. WIDE RANGE OF STUDIES. "As day schools," said Mr. Denny, "they have multilateral courses in agriculture, engineering trades, building and allied trades, commerce, home science, and they prepare some students for a considerable range of external examinations for those courses. They insist that the basic elements of a general education, namely, English, the social sciences, bookkeeping, physical culture, the science of life, drawing, shall occupy a considerable part of all courses, while permitting a gradual specialisation in the second, third, and following years.

"It is their special task to cater for the large proportion of non-academic but still very capable students at the post-primary stage. They are not trade schools, they are not narrowly technical in the sense that they have in mind preparation for any one particular trade or industry. They are designed to test the fitness of the pupil for the calling he proposes to follow, to give opportunities for acquiring the knowledge and skill that will both lay the foundation for future success and enable him to find pleasure in his work. They endeavour to cultivate tastes that will, when school days are past, give zest to the occupations of leisure hours, and will provide abiding interests. They aim to foster the development of the student as a social being, with an intelligent interest in public affairs; and by the means of physical culture and-games to ensure that all-round -development which is the essential of-a well-balanced education. Theyowe their success to their break with the academic tradition, to the fact that they are responsive to the needs of our community, and their students are keen because at the age of adolescence many boys and girls are immensely stimulated by the new interest which applied science, and the handling of tools and materials provides. v ADVANCED COURSES. "It is further a function of a technical college," continued Mr. Denny, "while taking the rank and file, of pupils as' far as' they can reasonably go,, to wait'eh tK6 'needs' off those ; gifted stu'dents' £pr' technical education .is ,desirable, and to whom the. university is not available. This applies especially to senior students in the evening school. The practical achievement of those aims presents problems peculiar to our type of school. THE PHYSICAL SIDE. "On the physical side, I believe it is generally true to say that girls are better catered for than boys. We are remedying this by degrees, but there yet remains the need for much-im-proved facilities for training physical culture specialists, particularly men, and of recruiting them on to our staffs, and I believe there is, too, a very real need for a school to have access to a skilled medical adviser for guidance, both physical and psychological. It may be argued that this is a matter for individual schools to deal with; I am concerned to draw attention to the need.

"In that connection," continued Mr. Denny, "I believe that if we paid more attention to the psychology of individual differences, we should find considerable help in our endeavour to understand pupils. It is so easy to treat students in the mass, so difficult to make something of a case study of each one, and yet how'worth while! We do not begin to know our pupils whether in day or evening - classes until we know how much work they have to do before and after school, what their medical history is, their worries, their hobbies, their interests, and their, aspirations; how often they go to the cinema; and what they read when they are free to choose for themselves. Nor can pupil study be divorced from the content of the curriculum. "I believe one of the major tasks i facing the whole teaching service is a profound rethinking of the curriculum and its content," Mr. Denny said. "The traditional classification and content of subjects dies hard, and satisfactory alternatives which will unify the work throughout the pupil's school life, both primary and post-primary, are not easy to discover," continued the speaker. , "Few subjects would be more fruitful of healthy discussion within our own association, and in Cooperation with the other associations, than this. We have it in our power to contribute materially to the planning of new dynamic courses of work in which much that is at present detached and unrelated to any central theme will fall into place and take on new meaning. It is a responsibility placed on all of us to assists. I know that some of oUr members are already earnestly engaged on one phase or another of this problem. I hope that more will take it up."