FREE PLACE SYSTEM

Southland Times, Issue 23436, 17 February 1938, Page 4

FREE PLACE SYSTEM

AMENDED REGULATIONS Amendments of the Education Department’s free place regulations have a special significance as far as the evening classes of the Technical College are concerned. The free* place system becomes even more generous than it has been in the past. Persons of any age who have at any time passed Standard VI and who have never attended as free pupils in a post-primary school are eligible, on certain conditions, to attend without payment of fees at evening classes. In the past all such students have been required to attend one evening weekly for instruction in English and arithmetic—a requirement which, it is stated, deterred many adults from taking advantage of their opportunities for further study. Now tile subjects specified are English and civics and these are compulsory only for younger students. It is believed that many persons who have never received free education in a State secondary or technical school will now take the opportunity of receiving instruction in arts and crafts, or in dress making and needlework, or in such subjects as engineering and woodwork, or book-keeping and typing. The distinction between junior and senior free places now disappears, and a free place becomes normally tenable for five years without the necessity for special tests at the end of the second year. Even those students of the evening school who failed to gain their senior free places at the end of 1937 may continue in attendance as free students, the only conditions being that they are satisfactory to the school authorities in* attendance, conduct, diligence and progress. It is stated that the intention of the Education Department is that boys and girls should remain in full-time attendance in day schools at least up to the age of 15 years; they are not eligible to attend evening classes (even as paying students) unless they are in employment that keeps them from attending a day school.