JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOLS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18687, 17 October 1922, Page 3

JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOLS

EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTES. APPROVAL, (Pee United Press Association.) WELLINGTON, October 16. The Minister of Education is gratified to find that the New Zealand Educational Institute endorsed his policy of establishing junior high schools. The secretary of the institution has forwarded the Minister the following motion carried at the last meeting of the executive“ That the executive congratulates the Minister on the successful opening of the first intermediate school under title of junior high school, and trusts that he will be encouraged to proceed with the extension and improvement of the education system which this opening foreshadows-,” The Minister stated to-day that tho opinion of the Teachers’ Institute was valuable, because it was the- judgment of experienced educationists. The public, however, was gradually reaching the conclusion that there were certain deficiencies in tho education system, and that remedies must bo secured. The reconstruction of the courses of education, from/six to 15 years of age, which will be effected in the intermediate school system, will, ho felt confident, prove to bo the solution of many existing difficulties. The extension of school age to 15 must, of course, follow as a complement to the new scheme. Tho new system, said the Minister, will largely break down the barrier separating primary and secondary teachers, and will tend to unify the profession. The primary teacher will have a new- avenue of promotion opened to him, while tho secondary teacher of the future will get useful training in junior high schools, and so enter upon senior high school work with a training which the young university graduate who begins teaching in the secondary school often lacks.