WHAT LIMIT ?

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 11295, 22 August 1922, Page 7

WHAT LIMIT ?

THE SCHOOL ACE QUESTION RAISED AT TECHNICAL BOARD MEETING. CALIFORNIA QUOTED. The question of the school age was touched on at last night’s meeting of the Technical College Board of Governors. The Director of the College (Mr J. H. Howell) reported ■as follows: — ‘‘lt was .generally thought that a great and now step was being taken by Parliament when two years ago the compulsory school ago in New Zealand was raised to to. though so far this has never been put into force. About the same time, however, a law was passed to California raising the school age not to 15, but to 16, and this has been carried out notwithstanding tho economic disturbances of the times. Further, it has been enacted that young persons who leave school at sixteen, unless engaged in agricultural, domestic or similar pursuits shall be required to attend school for four hours weekly for another two years. The influence of this enactment upon education is of course very great, and a return shows that of the pupils who complete the third year course of tho junior high schools no less than 93 per cent, actually transfer to the senior high schools. It is clearly absurd to assume, as has been done, that a secondary system which is suited to such conditions as these is also suited to tire very different conditions that will obtain here. The bond will remember that the department proposes that before entering the senior high school all pupils must complete a threeyear course in the junior high school, , and that this will normally be finished at fifteen, the new compulsory school age. I would still maintain that under these conditions a far greater proportion than at present will finish their school education at this stage and never proceed at all to the high school proper. Thus, instead of improving our system, the change will grievously maim it.

“Further, according to the plan nowadopted by the department, the senior high schools will not take any pupils until they have oompleted three years of the post primary course in the junior high school. Yet, in Los Angeles, where the system was first adopted and where it is now the most highly developed, the report for 1931 shows that no less than 71 per cent.' of the thirdyear post-primary pupils were in the senior high, schools, and only 29 per cent, were in the junior high schools. In Los Angeles, therefore, the senior and junior high schools are allowed to overlap and roe great majority of tho third-year post-primary pupils avail themselves of the facilities offered by the senior high schools.” Speaking as an advocate of raising the school age, Mr C. H. Chapman said that in New Zealand at had .been discovered that a child of seven could milk cows, so some people seemed to think it sufficient education for children to be taught to read and write. That spirit was abroad in New Zealand.

Mr T. Forsyth said that at present the schools could not accommodate all the pupils adequately, nor were there enough teachers. The raising of the school age would accentuate these difficulties.