TECHNICAL EDUCATION.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 18 August 1925, Page 9

TECHNICAL EDUCATION.

TEACHERS IN CONFERENCE.

ABOLITION OF SUBSIDIES

INCREASE IN FEES PROPOSED. (BY TELEGRAPH CHESS ASSOCIATIONWELLINGTON, Aug. 18. The conference of the New Zealand Technical Schools Teachers’ Association was continued to-day. The morning was devoted to a discussion of several questions suggested by. the Department, including classes under the Apprentice Act, the. abolition of subsidies except for specific purposes, and a. new scale of fees. A motion by Mr. E. J. Park (Auckland), that in the opinion of the conference it would be unwise to confine subsidies to capital expenditure, was carried. Mr. Park, referring to the matter of fees, said that a person paying was frequently the one most in need of education. It was generally stated that it was wise to encourage people to take up trades. The position of girl students was particularly unfair, while the question of the economic status of parents should not be allowed to enter. . Objections to fees were that it seemed that the tendency was upward, while in Australia and Canada evening education, and certainly trade education, was free. He thought a general objection should be made to the tendency of the scale of the Department’s fees Mr. Marshall (Dunedin) referred to the high cost of keeping hoys from 16 onwards. The minimum fee was allegedly £5, but it was really £7 10s, and might be more. Mr. Trobe (Director of Technical Education) said that there imght be only one or two students in each centre whom the change would affect. Dr. Hansen (Christchurch) said he would like to see an effort mad e , to bring fees within the reach of _ all, as he had known of cases in which the mother, as well as the father, had gone to work 'in order to provide postprimary education for their hoy.