A TACTFUL APPEAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 2 August 1932, Page 6

A TACTFUL APPEAL.

The rejoinder of the Minister of Education, the Hon. R. Masters, to the Nelson Education Board’s finding in regard to the age at which pupils should be admitted to primary schools is more a tactful appeal than a departmental ruling. The Nelson board considers that it has legal authority to admit at the beginning of a school term children who will reach the age of six before the term ends. The board considers it is better for the pupils and for the arrangement of the school work that this course should be followed, and it virtually challenged the Education Department to show that the board’s proposal was illegal or ultra vires, seeing that children admitted below the age of six would not be enrolled and therefore the department would not be asked to pay capitation fees in regard, to them. The Minister in his reply has confined himself to principles. He does not decide whether the Nelson board’s proposal is sound in law or wise in practice. It may be, he admits, that it is both. But Mr. Masters emphasises that Parliament deliberately legislated for the raising of the school entry age from five years to six. He asks the Nelson and all other local educational authorities therefore to assist the Minister in carrying out the intentions of Parliament, even though they may not agree that they are altogether desirable. If the school legislation requires amendment Parliament should, says the Minister, undertake this ta-sk, but in the meantime the intention of the Legislature is plain and should receive the support of all educational authorities. It is an appeal that can scarcely be refused, though that is not to say that efforts towards an alteration of Parliament’s, opinion must be suspended.