AGE FOR SCHOOL

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21805, 21 May 1934, Page 11

AGE FOR SCHOOL

OBJECTION TO RAISING EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTE MINISTER'S REMARKS RESENTED [BY TELEGRAPH—OWN CORRESPONDENT] WELLINGTON. Saturday "The Minister is attempting to bolster up a Sfeak case by an unwarranted abuse of the teaching profession," said Mr. G. R. Ashbridge, secretary of the New Zealand Educational Institute, in a statement yesterday, referring to the Minister's defence of the school entrance age legislation, in which he stated that the teachers should come out and be "straight and honest" and say that they were embarking on an agitation for an increase in salary. "There is no foundation whatever." said Mr. Ashbridge, "for the statement that teachers have not been straight and honest. From the very outset the institute has drawn attention, not only to the effect of the legislation on the children, but also to its effects on the teachers, especially in so for as it has deprived hundreds of teachers, now under the rationing scheme, of permanent employment, and blocked channels of promotion for thoso in permanent positions. "In effect, the legislation has meant a further reduction of many salaries already subject to the two cuts imposed on the general body of public servants," .Mr. Ashbridge continued. "Mr. Masters knows perfectly well that this side of the question has' been put before him in an absolutely open and straightforward way on a number of occasions. It is exceedingly crude, to say the least of it, to attempt to discredit the case for the readmission of five-year-olds by saying that the teachers arc concerned with the question of their salaries and status. "The Minister's reference to the exclusion of five-year-olds as an experiment was particularly inept, and displayed an ignorance of the first principles of educational research. If. the Minister honestly desired to discover the effects of the raising of the school entrance age, all that was necessary, was to select a few sample schools, and then to see how those admitted at sis compared with those admitted at five. It was obviously unnecessary to exclude the entire five-year-old school popular tion. Furthermore, the Minister should know that the tendency in all progressive countries was to extend some form of educational provision, not; merely to five-year-olds, but to children below that age.

"The Minister is alone in the British Empire in economising in education by raising the school entrance age," said Mr. Ashbridge.

ATTITUDE OF TEACHERS INTERESTS OF CHILD FIRST [BY TELEGRAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION] WELLINGTON", Saturday A warm reply to the statement by the Minister of Education, the Hon. R. Masters, that the institute was using its request for the admission of five-year-old children to primary schools as camouflage for its desire to obtain increases in salary, was made last evening by Miss Magill, past president of the New Zealand Teachers' Institute. Miss Magill guid that in its 51 years of life there was no record of the instituta having been dishonest, and it had always placed the child first.