JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOLS

Southland Times, Issue 19654, 3 October 1922, Page 5

JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOLS

THE FIRST OPENED MR PARR ON THE INNOVATION (Per United Press Association.' AUCKLAND. October 2. The Kowhai Junior High School was opened by the Hon. C. J. Parr to-day. The Minister characterised the occasion as a red letter day in the history’ of education in New Zealand. 'Diere had been talk of the new system injuring primary* and secondary education, but such criticism was offered only by the iff-informed. A large perecontagc of children were at present going through course-* quite, unsuited to their special needs, whereas in junior high schools they would be tried out by different courses and given the course of instruction to which they were best adapted. Bright children would not be forced to go slow to keep pace with dull ones, and the latter would not be left behind as at present, for it would be demonstrated that they were not dull at all, only different. “Let us try out the new idea and experiment, not slavishly copying other countries, but evolving a system of education that will peculiarly be adapted to tl>e needs of the children of your own countrj’,” he added. Speaking at the opening of a new primary school. Mr Parr repudiated the charge that Auckland favoured in expenditure on education. He characterised the charge as a slander, saying that in no other centre had overcrowding been so bad as here. He had been ashamed of the way in which the children had been herded together in Auckland schools. This was the result of the fact that the population had increased 45,000 in a decade.