EDUCATION PROBLEMS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 113, 16 May 1939, Page 10

EDUCATION PROBLEMS

POST-PRIMARY COURSE

INFLUENCE OF THE HOME

Some of the problems of postprimary education were discussed by Mr. G. G. Hancox, principal of Wairarapa College, in a talk given at today's luncheon of the . Wellington Rotary Club. . . . ' •

Mr. Hancox stressed the importance of co-operation between the parent and the teacher, both as regards the selection of a suitable course and the subsequent progress of the pupil. The home influence was the most potent factor in education, he said, and there was also a growing personal interest being shown by teacher's in their pupils. Many parents thought that the only way to ensure a boy's progress was to have him sit for the university entrance examination, and he was afraid that some of those present were responsible for that point of view. Some of them were inclined to say that they must have boys who had passed that examination, but they would be helping the post-primary classes, and the pupils, if they 'regarded the schobMeaying certificate as an equally good qualification for practical purposes. Mr. Hancox mentioned the case ;of boys of fifteen and sixteen who were required by their employers to attend evening technical classes two or three nights a week. He suggested it would be very much in the interests of the boys and their employers if they were enabled to take part of their apprenticeship training in the daytime. On the question of raising the school leaving age, Mr. Hancox said that that had been put forward as a means of offsetting unemployment. He did not agree with that idea, but if remaining at school until the age of fifteen developed the character of a boy and trained him in tastes that would bene- J fit him in his leisure time, as well as developed his practical intelligence, he. was in favour of raising the leaving age. It should be for educational reasons,1 not for economic reasons. The problem that arose was that many parents could not afford to have their children remain at school until the age of fifteen, and the question then was whether there should be exemption in such cases or payment of an educational allowance.