SCHOOL HOLIDAYS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19320, 6 May 1926, Page 8

SCHOOL HOLIDAYS.

The complaint that educational authorities give too little attention to holidays—it was made in the Times as a criticism applying to all such authorities in Britain—does not lie against the Auckland Education Board. It has of late found holidays a vexed question. Yesterday it seemed so tired of the subject that it decided not to reopen discussion about it; or rather, to be precise, one member of the board used his privilege to obstruct a proposal to review the May holidays to be granted this year, and the board then decided to get the views of the school committees for its guidance as to future policy. The arrangement of dates is the board's difficulty—in Britain even the uses to which holidays are put have been included in recent discussion —and apparently this has proved a little baffling. The holidays of the primary schools do not coincide with those of the secondary schools, and proposals to synchronise them have been frequently made. Although the advantages of such synchronising are fairly clear, agreement has not been reached, and the opinions of the committees may help the board to roach a settled arrangement. The committees themselves may not, of course, be in agroement,; but they are in a better position than the board to discover the desires of the parents. That is very desirable. The parents probably favour bringing the primary and secondary school holidays into uniformity, as in many homes there are some children attending the primary school and others the secondary, and holidays that do not coincide create difficulties. Of course, there is the teachers' point of view; but this the board itself can discover: and the children might also like to be consulted; but perhaps the board thinks their opinion sufficiently unanimous and ascertainable without a plebiscite. To have a referendum of the committees may do all that is necessary to help the board to come to an arrangement less haphazard and more satisfactory than now obtains. It is worth trying.