EDUCATION SYSTEM

Southland Times, Issue 19479, 31 March 1922, Page 5

EDUCATION SYSTEM

IMPORTANT PROPOSALS CONFERENCE OF EXPERTS (Special to the Times). WELLINGTON, March 3b. The reconstruction of the New Zealand Education system is being considered by the conference of educational experts in Wellington. The conference was summoned by the Minister for Education in order that he might advise concerning his scheme for curtailing the primary course, and establishing junior high schools as a link between the primary system and the secondary system. It is proposed that the primary course shall carry the children to an educational standard equivalent to standards 4 or 5, and shall be completed by the time they reach the age of twelve or thirteen years. Elementary work will be simplified in some respects, in order that the children may finish the course quickly. Then will come a three years’ course in junior high school work, corresponding roughly to that done in the upper standards of the present primary schools and during the first year of attendance in secondary schools. The natural capabilities of children will be studied in the junior high schools, and the practical side of the work will be developed. The junior high school course will carry the chilren to their fifteenth or sixteenth year. Parliament has sanctioned the extension of the compulsory school attendance rule from the fourteenth year to the fifteenth vear. From the junior high school the children will be drafted to secondary High schools and technical high schools. Some of them may go to work, and for them continuation classes will be provided. The policy of the Department will be to make the secondary technical course vocational in character. Any special aptitude that a boy or girl may have shown will be developed . Parents may be asked to assist by indicating what lines of work they expect their children to follow. When opening the conference to-day the Minister for Education said that the reforms he was asking the expert# to consider had got past the stage of academia discussion. It was the settled conviction of the educationalists that that the changes he had in view should be brought about gradually. He had called the conference because he desired to get advice on various practical pointe such as the subjects to be taught, the staffing arrangements, *and the utilisation of existing buildings.