Junior High School

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVI, Issue 89, 31 March 1926, Page 5

Junior High School

Superiority Vindicated A MINISTERIAL JUSTIFICATION REFUTATION OF CRITICISM. (Per Press Association). Whangarei, March 30. Sir James Parr in the course of his remarks at the opening of the junior high school in connection with the protest j>f the Waitaki branch of the Teachers’ Institute against his speech at Oamaru. when he compared the product of the junior high schools with the fifth and sixth standards to the advantage of the new movements, said the Waitaki branch of the Institute had failed to realise that no modern educationalist defended the fifth and sixth standard system. Sir Harry Richel, Sir John Adams, ana Mr. Frank Tate, in. his recent secondary school report, all advocated that primary education should cease and secondary education begin at 12, not 14 years of age. This implied, of course, the abolition of the present fifth and sixth standards from the primary course. He had visited all the junior high schools recently and was satisfied that they gave a much sounder and better education than the old system. “There can be no doubt,” said the Minister, “that graduallv and eventually the fifth and sixth standards will be abolished and that high school education will begin at about 12 years, as is the case in every other country.” The junior high school gave a much richer and more varied curriculum, which aroused and stimulated the interests of the pupil. The classes were smaller and had the great advantage of being taught by specialist teachers as against the old system, where one teacher had taken all subjects. The advantages of th© new system were beyond all argument. New Zeafanu lagged behind all modern practice in carrying primary education on up to the' age of 14 years. Experiences primary teachers, after some specialisation, were necessarv to junior high school staffs, and primary teachers would not suffer by the change. Lastly, he was not greatly concerned with how the new school affected existing interests, because the real test, after all, wag what was best for the children, and all thinkers now agreed that a new and more interest* ing curriculum was required after the present fourth standard.