PARENTS INDIGNANT

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 10 February 1944, Page 5

PARENTS INDIGNANT

SCHOOL PUPILS REJECTED REAL PROBLEM OF OVERCROWDING Auckland. Feb. 9. The special meeting of the Auckland Grammar Schools Board held yesterday to consider the problem of finding accommodation for intending secondary school pupils proved a long and arduous one. The crux of the discussion was the recent rejection on an intelligence test of 79 girls who sought entry to the Auckland Girls’ Grammar School.

A deputation of about two dozen parents, who spent an hour and a half with the board, showed keen indignation at the exclusion of their daughters, and some of them with strong feeling demanded redress. Blame was liberally apportioned by them to the Education Department, the Grammar School Board, and the headmistress of the school concerned.

The senior inspector, Mr H. McChesney, attended the meeting as representing the Minister of Education and the Director of Education.

The chairman, Mr J. Stanton, submitted a statement showing the following enrolments, the figures for 1943 being given in parentheses: Auckland Grammar School, 936 (836); Mount Albert, 839 (691): Auckland Girls’, 703 (665); Epsom Girls’, 670 (653); Takapuna, 644 (514); totql, 3792 (3359). Mr Stanton said that the headmistress of the Auckland Girls’ Grammar School, Miss E. M. Johnston, had applied her usual entrance test to the 350 pupils seeking admission, and 81 had been rejected. Two vacancies had since occurred. Thc Epsom Girls’ Grammar School had been unable to accommodate about 25, who had been sent to the Manukau Intermediate School. The board had succeeded in providing for a total increase of 443 pupils. Miss Johnston submitted a statement in which she emphasised that it was absolutely impossible to increase the present roll number; that the selection of those pupils who were to remain was made on the only fair basis, and that every parent had the indubitable right to demand postprimary education for his child, but not that the child should be admitted to an already overcrowded school. She proposed as a solution thc formation at the Normal School of a form 111 as a nucleus of a Normal Secondary School, to be run in conjunction with the Training College. The Auckland Girls’ Grammar School was originally built for 350 pupils.

RIGHT TO ENROLMENT Mr McChesney said they had got a real problem, and he did not wish to criticise anybody, but the Act said that pupils had the right to be enrolled, and made no provision for competitive examination. The only way out he could see was to seek to provide the necessary accommodation for all. intermediate schools did not provide academic courses. That was not their purpose. The mayor, Mr Allum, said someone was responsible for the position that had arisen, and the parents were entitled to know who. It must have been foreseen.

The chairman said it was because of the coincidence of the influx of the five and six-year-old pupils enrolled in 1936 and the raising of the school age to 15. The age was raised only last month without warning. If the military gave the Training College back for its original purpose it would not only relieve the Normal School, but it would solve this problem. Mr McChesney suggested the hiring of a hall for the Auckland Girls’ Grammar School, but Miss Johnston objected that that would be quite impracticable.

VACATION OF TRAINING COLLEGE Mr Allum said the military had taken an hour to go into the Training College, and they should not require months to vacate it. At this stage Mr M. B. Ross introduced the deputation of parents, most of whom had to stand round the wall.

Mr Ross, appealing on behalf of the disappointed parents, said that some of them were returned soldiers of the last war. The rejection of their daughters had been a great shock to the parents, specially as the girls had been turned away without any guarantee of enrolment at any other school. It was a truly tragic state of affairs. They had been appalled at the failure of the Education Department to see that full accommodation was provided. He criticised the tests applied by Miss Johnston.

THE BOARD’S DECISION The chairman said that the position was not one that the board could either have anticipated or avoided. Miss Johnston explained that the test used was the one supplied by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research. In thanking the board, Mr Ross said he felt there was enough dynamite among its membe sto shift things in Wellington. the deputation had withdrawn the board adopted a resolution by Professor Belshaw that the board make most urgent representations to thc Prime Minister and the Minister of Education to make the Normal School immediately available by restoring the Training College to its original use. A special committee was set up with power to act in dealing with this emergency.