TECHNICAL SCHOOLS

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 1 June 1927, Page 5

TECHNICAL SCHOOLS

OVERCROWDED CLASSES.

SYSTEM N.EEDS REVISING.

THE MINISTER’S STATEMENT.

(BY TELEGRAPH—PRESS ASSOCIATION))

PALMERSTON N., June 1

“It seems to me that the whole' question of technical education will have to be revised. Wherever I go there is a continual cry about technical schools being overcrowded. If you are continually adding new classes, of course they will be overcrowded. We must have some limit to the number of classes organised ; ” stated the Hon. R. A. Wright, Minister of Education, last evening, in replying to a request from the committee of the Technical School for increased accommodation to meet the demand of intending students.

The chairman stressed the tremendous growth of -the school since 1924, stating that teaching had to be carried on on an upstairs landing. A number of new classes were waiting to be formed.

The Minister supplemented his remarks by adding that teclmical schools were not instituted to take every halfdozen people who came along and wanted to form a class. This was going on all over New Zealand. _lt seemed that the directors of technical schools ran,the boards and wanted to biuld big schools. Technical schools were originally founded with the object of taking primary school children and giving them, if they preferred it, academic or technical education. We have got away from that, and the system would have to be reviewed from A to Z.