INTERMEDIATE SCHOOLS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21977, 12 June 1933, Page 8

INTERMEDIATE SCHOOLS

PROPOSED SYSTEM CONDEMNED VIEWS OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTE.

(Per United Press Association.) WELLINGTON, June 10.

. The Executive of the New Zealand Educational Institute has prepared a statement in which it expresses the opinion that pursuance of the movement for establishing intermediate schools under the regulations recently published is inadvisable. It is urged that the country is in a state of financial embarrassment, and that the establishment of the intermediate school system under the conditions obtaining can only be effected at the expense of the existing junior high schools and the already financially strained primary system. The exclusion of five-year-old children renders reorganisation difficult, and in the opinion of the executive the substitution of a two-year for a threeyear course is not regarded as being in the best interests of the children nor in accord with the accepted educational policy of England and other leading educational countries, and is inconsistent with the policy formerly advanced by the Education Department and approved by the institute. The removal of pupils from Forms I and II from the charge of senior teachers, it is stated, is not in the best interests of the children. It is asserted that the regulations are' inequitable and unjustifiable as regards the proposed stalling and salaries scale. The statement continues:—

Even stronger reasons against the pursuit of the present policy are to be found in the field of organisation and administration.. It has long been recognised by those concerned in education that the greatest hindrance to effective working is a division of the work under separate authorities. The barriers that exist between the primary, secondary, and technical school are a source of many evils and make it impossible that the education system can bo worked to the best effect. Education is, or ought to be, a continuous progress of growth. The barriers referred to impose checks and hindrances to the process that ought to be removed. The first essential is the setting up of a single authority to control all educational effort of each local area.