VOCATIONAL TRAINING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20621, 21 July 1930, Page 10

VOCATIONAL TRAINING.

POST-PRIMARY COURSES. PREPARATION FOR LIFE. Aptitudes of the pupils. The extension of tho period of compulsory education from 14 to 15 years is one of tho most important features of tho report that has been prepared for Parliament by the Recess Education Committee. The committee expressly states that tho wholo purposo of the proposed period of compulsory post-primary education is to provide exploratory courses by which the special aptitudes of tho pupils may be discovered and developed.

Tho committee recognises that the pupils will comprise two distinct groups, tho "continuers" arid tho "leavers." It has been impressed with tho evident wastago duo to pupils cntoring tho existing post-primary schools and leaving without having completed any definite courso. This will not obtain under tho new system. Tho committees believes that those who are compelled by circumstances to proceed from the intermediate schools directly into employment will be far better equipped for the battle of life than undor tho o'd system; and, moreover, that an increasing proportion of them will develop their education in evening continuation and technical classes. It also believes that tho proportion of those who will proceed to full-time higher secondary education will increaso under tho new system and that tho secondary schools proper will bo thronged with genuine " continuers," better prepared to enter upon higher studies and more likely to complete the courses upon which they embark. Levelling Social Distinctions. It is hoped by tho committee that the adoption of its schemo of post-primary schools will cause to disappear tho last vestige of tho objectionable social distinctions which have hitherto tended to divide thoso who have received a secondary education from thoso who have not, as well as thoso who have received an academic education from thoso taught in tho secondary schools. The two types will bo brought under a single controlling authority and in many cases actually amalgamated, as at New Plymouth, into a singlo modern composite school. Tho schools for those from 12 to 15 years will bo organised on a co-educational basis, so that tho normal and healthy association of young people of both sexes, which is characteristic of all the primary and technical schools, university and teachers' training colleges, will not be interrupted during that period of their lives when, in the opinion of the committee, its mutually beneficial influenco is most needed. Cost of New System. The cost of the new system has been very carefully considered by the committee, which points out that in so far as it will result in increasing the number of children in attendance at the public schools, it will undoubtedly increaso the annual expenditure upon education. This would arise from the extension of the school age from 14 to 15 years and would have to be met, whatever form of reorganisation was adopted. As tho new system necessitates a general reduction in the sizo of classes, it will also contribute to what is already the declared policy of the Government. As far as running expenses are concerned, evidence showed conclusively that the Ivowhai Junior High School had been conducted for somo time at a cost not exceeding that of the district high schools. As to buildings, it is quite clear that, on tho whole, thero will be very littlo additional building required over and abo\e what would be necessary to meet tho normal expansion of the service and tho special extension occasioned by the raising of the school age.

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS.

HISTORY OF CHANGES.

JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL SYSTEM.

Tho most notable recent historical developments in tho education system of Now Zealand aro summarised in an interesting section in tho report of tho Recess Education Committee.

"The rapid extension of freo university education and State responsibility for the provision of university finance has," it says, " set in operation in this field the same evolutionary development of tho controlling authority of tlj.o central department as in thoso of tho primary and post-primary grades. The leavening influence of the new conception of the aims of education is evidenced by tho movement toward freeing the secondary schools, and tho university students also, from tho unfortunate dominance of (he external examination system so emphatically condemned by the Reichel-Tate Commission and the Tate report in 1925. " The world-wide reconsideration of the. point of articulation betwen elementary and post-elementary education was emphasised by the establishment of a number of experimental junior high schools of varying types during Sir James Parr's occupancy of tho Ministerial office, and later by tho introduction into Standards V. and VI., under the elementary schools syllabus of 1928, of certain subjects which had always been regarded as belonging (o tho secondary grade, notably foreign languages and mathematics.

"In this connection, however, it is a historical fact that tho 60 to 80 district high schools which developed with such rapidity as part of tho free place system organised by Mr. Hogben, were in principle, and to a considerable extent in practice, a great body of rural junior high schools, in which science, manual and domestic training and agriculture were taught from Standard V. upwards. Historically theS6 schools paved the way for tho present movement to doterniine an earlier ago of transition from purely elementary to pre-vocational work, just ,13 tho technical high schools, rather than tho eight recent experimental junior hich schools, constitute tho real historical foundation for tho movement towards bringing these pre-vocational courses into closer harmony with tho realities of modern life."