THE INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22196, 24 February 1934, Page 12

THE INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL

The Minister of Education, in officially opening the intermediate school at Albany street yesterday, asked for a suspension of judgment upon the school until the public has had an opportunity of seeing how it will fulfil its purpose. It is intended that the school will serve the object of guiding, as far as may be practicable, the pupils into the avenues of life for which they may exhibit a particular aptitude. The headmaster of the school indicated that he would be prepared to hear not a little criticism of it. One ground upon which the institution of the intermediate school system has been already criticised is that a two years’ course, which will be the normal course, is not sufficiently long to admit of a sound judgment being formed respecting the aptitudes of the pupils. The junior high school system, to which the intermediate school system is an alternative if it may not actually be said that it is being substituted for it, provides for a three-year course, and it is contended that a course of this duration is necessary that the aptitudes and interests of the pupils may be discovered. The Minister apparently considers that this contention is riot without substance, for he said yesterday that there was no objection to pupils' who were not going on to a secondary school staying for another year at the intermediate school. If the third year’s schooling is to be available as a right and not as a privilege the objection to the term of the course disappears but so also does one of the bases upon which the intermediate school is established. The general object of any school in which it is definitely the duty of the teachers to note the aptitudes of the pupils and “to train them ” as Mr Sproat expressed it “ with special emphasis on the subjects to which they are most suited ” must be generally approved. The success of any school is very largely dependent upon the character of the teaching, and the quality of the training must in ; ,a peculiar sense determine the measure of the success achieved by a school with the objects for which the intermediate school has been established. This school in reality represents an experiment. For this reason the Minister’s plea that it should not be judged upon a few months’ working is one that commands respect.