THE TECHNICAL COLLEGE

Southland Times, Issue 23152, 19 March 1937, Page 8

THE TECHNICAL COLLEGE

MEETING OF BOARD OF MANAGERS

INCREASE IN NUMBER OF PUPILS

At the monthly meeting of the Technical College Board of Managers last evening, Mr J. H. Reed (chairman), presided over the following members: Miss C. McLeod, Messrs S. Anderson, A. J. Ball, W. Carswell, W. Grieve, A. W. Jones, A. J. Service, W. G. Tait and J. Weir. , . It was decided to co-operate with the Education Department in making it possible for members of the teaching staff to attend the conference of the New Education Fellowship to be held in Dunedin from July 19 to 24. Members of the board expressed gratification at the fact that the college now possessed a Diesel engine suitable' for instructional purposes. The board decided to support the scheme, initiated by the New Zealand Technical Education Association, for the establishment of a strong technological library to be housed in the Wellington Technical College, but to be accessible to all contributing schools. Among other benefits to follow irrnn the scheme, it was said, would be the establishment of a postal library system to be of benefit to all technical colleges, the building up of a central library of educational films to be used by schools possessing satisfactory projectors, and to keep the various colleges informed on matters appearing in journals and magazines connected with technical school activities. Principal’s Report The following passages appeared in the monthly report of the principal (Mr C. A. Stewart):— “The present roll number of the Technical High School is 707, an increase of 54 above last year’s record. Some 10 or 12 others have enrolled, but since cancelled the enrolments on account of their securing employment or leaving the district. A few of last year’s pupils have not yet been accounted for, and one or two new enrolments are still being received. I therefore estimate that our present roll number will be quite maintained after the school opens. A pleasing feature of the increased enrolment is that the number of girls is more nearly equal to the number of boys than in recent years—girls 336, boys 371. The increase of pupils for first-year classes is 45, and for second-year classes 11; in senior classes there is at present a drop of two. “One result of our large increase of numbers in the commercial course is that the typing room will have to be in full use in every lesson period of the week. Actually the commercial course seems to me disproportionately large, and I hope that there will be no further great growth there for a year or two. Meanwhile, in view of this year’s general growth and the prospect of a further increase when the age of compulsory attendance is raised to 15 years, it seems necessary that the board should press for the extension of the main building along Forth street. The present conditions in the Tay street buildings, especially in the art department, are not such as to stimulate healthy growth of senior classes, more particularly in the evening school. The appointment of an additional _ full-time teacher of mathematics and science will strengthen our staff, and suitable arrangements are being made for parttime assistants in other courses. Correspondence Work “The third batch of homework assignments has now been posted out to all pupils. On account of the range of our subjects and the variety of work, we have felt that it would not be reasonable to ask the newspapers to publish our assignments. All work has therefore been done on our typewriters by members of the office staff and the commercial teachers, or has been done by individual teachers on the school mimeoscope, and in either case run off on the duplicator. This has involved much work, some hundredweight of paper, and more than 700 foolscap envelopes weekly. “At present the correspondence scheme is being extended •to some classes in the evening school, more especially .to those students who are preparing "for examinations. So far only about 230 students have joined up for evening classes; the enrolling has naturally been retarded by the postponements of the opening. In previous years we have had vain protests from would-be students who had lost their free places by failure to make prompt entry after leaving day schools; it seems likely that toe number of such cases will be greater than usual this year. As toe department’s reasonable requirements in this respect are made known to all post-primary schools, there seem no fair grounds for complaint of failure through ignorance. “Hie Lister Diesel engine ordered recently has now come to hand. I am pleased to report that in recognition of the fact that the engine would be used only for instructional purposes and would have good publicity value, toe New Zealand agents made a substantial concession from the price quoted to us.”