JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOLS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 14 June 1926, Page 7

JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOLS.

COUNCIL OF EDUCATION. TO GIVE CONSIDERED OPINION. (.BY TELEGRAPH PRESS ASSOCIATION.) WELLINGTON, June 13. When the new Minister of Education, Hon. R. A. Wright, met the Council of Education, he suggested that he would appreciate the Council’s considered opinion upon the whole subject of junior high schools, which was coupled, he pointed out, with the economic aspect of education, because the question would at once arise as to whether the country could afford such a radical change in its educational policy. Certain. tentative proposals having been formulated, the Council went into committee t<> discuss them. A summary of these proposals is as follows: To. provide suitable educational environment for children from 12 to 16 years of age, such environment including a separate organisation with enriched. and reorganised curricula and courses of study and 1 methods of teaching peculiarly fitted to cliddren of that age; to explore pupils’ interests, aptitude and capabilities, and to provide for individual differences demanding, amongst other things, a. flexible curriculum to provide for gradual transition to higher schools, thus retaining pupils in school for a longer period, this necessitating democratisation of educational opportunities; to provide pre-vocational curricula, for pupils who must leave school early, and finally, to provide earlier direct preparation for the (higher education of pupils like’y to continue in schools.