AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 71, Issue 6143, 1 October 1945, Page 2

AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL

SOUTH AUCKLAND PROPOSAL ADDRESSES BY MR A. E. BRYANT At the meeting of the Rotary Club last week and at Friday night’s meeting of the Te Awamutu branch of the Farmers’ Union the president of the latter organisation, Mr A. E. Bryant, gave addresses on the proposed Agriculutural High School in the South Auckland district. Speaking at those meetings, said the pamphlet (quoted from at the close of the address to Rotary) was sent to all other organisations likely to be interested. It was a good pamphlet and the suggested school was worthy of 100 per cent support. Mr Bryant recalled that when Mr Rochfort took over the local District High School he had waited on the Farmers’ Union to socilit their co-op-eration in doing more for the boys taking the Agricltural course than had been done in the past. They had set up a committee to co-operate with the High School Committee and teachers, and the boys had been taken to various farms, to Auckland and to Horotiu, but even that was not enough. In their first year 28 boys took the farm course when then dropped in successive stages to 18, 8 and even as low as 5. Some farmers thought that they had done their duty to their sons in the way of education if they gave them 18 months’ secondary education. They should educate the farmers first of all to the value of education. At least two years’ secondary education was needed before a boy went on to an agricultural school. It took a boy two years at a secondary school to know his own mind. If there for that period he might know what he wanted to do. In Form 4 there were boys aged only 14 and 15 years. The scheme was that boys after two years at a secondary school should go on to a boarding school which had a farm of about 300 acres attached. There they would have teachers who had been through Massey College. It was intended to build the school away from a town so as to get away from the town atmosphere. In North Auckland they had such a school due to the fact that the Education Board had taken a large disused hospital as the buildings. In South Auckland they were not so fortunate, but they were not worrying about the site at the moment. The boys in this area had at present either to go to Feilding or Paerata. The latter was an agricultural college run under the auspices of the Methodist Church principally for Maori boys. They wanted the Government to make available a sufficient subsidy to help parents pay for the board of the boys at the proposed school, thus allowing all boys, irrespective of the financial standing of their parents, to attend it. That roughly was the idea of the proposed school. Mr Bryant then read the following extracts of the booklet referred to at the Rotary Club meeting, and in order to give continuity to the report it is inserted at this stage. The strenuous efforts of the Department for the past 25 years to popularise agriculture as a school subject has been in vain. The extent of the failure may be guaged from the fact that in 1939 only 875 boys out of a total of 15,552 were taking an agricultural course at a high school, combined school or technical high school. Academic, commercial and industrial courses far outstrip the? agricultural. Only Feilding Technical High School is essentially an agricultural school with 111 boys out of 188 boys taking the.course; most of them are boarded from afar. Of 29 other high and technical schools offering courses in 1938 only two secondary schools and one combined school had more than 50 boys in the agricultural course; 15 had fewer than 30, and three fewer than 10.

To put it bluntly, farming is an increasingly unpopular occupation. It has been estimated that whereas some 8000 farm recruits are needed annually, only some 4320 actually enter the occupation. Moreover it has been shown that the total number of school leavers probably entering farming in 1938, was only 60 per cent of the number in 1932.

Pupil activity in learning by doing is the kenynote of modern educational methods, but it has not been possible to apply these methods to agriculture, chiefly because of the academic training of the teachers. Another point worthy of notice is that the provision of every possible facility in the way of special accommodation, equipment, farms, hostels, etc., can be of very limited value unless the teachers are capable and enthusiastic regarding the special aims of the school.

With regard to the training of suitable teachers it is suggested that in place of the usual third year at a Teachers’ Training College, selected students should spend a third and even fourth year in completing their training at an Agricultural College where a special course could be devised. To meet the needs of the North Island, arrangements could probably be made with Massey Agricultural College. In the Auckland province, south of the Auckland city and suburban area, post primary education is provided by four high and technical high schools and 22 district high schools which include Te Awamutu and Otorohanga. The district high schools have to cater for every type of pupil, and this fact necessitates the provision of a variety of courses.

Limited teaching staffs and lack of equipment are factors which must severely handicap such schools in their attempts to provide practical courses. It is obviously impossible for instance to provide all small schools with/farms and equipment to enable them to undertake practical farm work. Tauranga District High School has been an outstanding exception, and has for a number of years successfully conducted an agricultural course with a school farm of' 10 acres.

In the first two years of secondary education the main purpose is to give pupils a well-balanced general education that will be a foundation for all pupils, irrespective of whether they wish to take up a profession, trade, or go on to the land. The boy who is intended for the land is entitled to and indeed requires just as good a general education as the boy who is to enter a profession or trade. Fuller specialisation in practical agriculture would then be. possible and desirable during the third and fourth years. The committee is of the opinion that those pupils who desire to go on to the land have a right to claim at least an equal opportunity for further education to that offered to pupils who