NOT COMPULSORY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27507, 29 September 1950, Page 8

NOT COMPULSORY

Service In School Cadets PURELY VOLUNTARY BASIS Special Correspondent WELLINGTON. Sept. 28. Service in school cadets is not compulsory. This point is made in a reply received by the Federation of Labour from the Government in answer to a proposal of the federation’s annual conference in April last that military training in secondary schools should be abolished and the time given to physical culture. The federation’s conference, after receiving a remit from the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, declared that in view of the decision to institute the military training of youths at the age of 18 years, the training as practised in secondary schools was not justified. The federation has received this ministerial reply: “Some form of military training is carried on in almost all post-primary schools and in the secondary departments of some district high schools, but there is no direction from the Education Department in this matter and the controlling authorities of the schools are quite free to decide whether such training should be done in schools under their charges. ' “With the exception of the annual camp or barracks with which the year’s work normally begins, all military training is conducted outside the hours which count officially as school instruction. There is no compulsion on pupils to undertake service in cadet corps establishments. All such service is on a voluntary basis, and schools usually provide alternative occupations for those pupils whose parents object to military training. “ During 1949 a conference was held between the army authorities and representatives of teacher organisations and of the Education Department. As a result of the discussions that took place, added emphasis is now given to the work of specialist units such as medical, signals, engineers and field craft, with a minimum of barrack square drill and small arms training. At the same time, physical education is an essential element in every school cadet course, and specialist officers of the Education Department are attached to schools for their barracks week to supervise and assist in an orderly scheme of physical education. ■ “I feel,” the reply concluded, “that under the present system the headmaster of every school has freedom to provide for hoys the kind of training that he considers will best fit them for the full responsibilities of citizenship.”