SCHOOL COURSES.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 1 June 1926, Page 7

SCHOOL COURSES.

UNIFORMITY DEPRECATED. EFFECT OF JUNIOR! HIGH SCHOOLS. (BY TELEGRAPH PRESS ASSOCIATION.) WELLINGTON, May 31. Commenting upon the report of the New Zealand Education Institute on the question of junior high schools, whicli was presented to a conference here recently, the director of the Wellington Technical College, Air. J. H. Howell, said in a report to-night that while agreeing generally with the report, he must take exception to the statement that all primary schools must in general provide the same course. “In the smaller centres,” he said, “where industry and commerce are little developed and population is small, this must obviously be the case, but in the larger centres uniformity spells inefficiency. In education, as in business, specialisation is necessary to success when the scope of the operation is large enough to justify it.” The question of junior high schools would either destroy or strengthen technical education. Air. Caughley’s idea that junior high schools should be attached only to ordinary high schools and in no case to technical high schools had been tried twenty years ago and proved a failure. This would encourage academic education and delegate to evening schools only all kinds of technical training.