ANOTHER YEAR AT SCHOOL

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18583, 2 June 1930, Page 8

ANOTHER YEAR AT SCHOOL

One of the most interesting phases of educational progress in England and Wales, is the proposal to raise the school leaving age to fifteen years. Already statutory provision exists in Now Zealand to add another year to school life, but it is generally conceded that iu view of the large numbers of New Zealand school children who remain at school after the statutory leaving age. it is hardly necessary to enforce the statute,' more particularly in view of the hardship that, might be inflicted on many less for Innate families by raising the school ago and making the now provisions mandatory. The Bill passed the House of Commons by 280 votes to 223, and should very soon become Statute law; The president of the Board of Education, Sir Charles Trevelyan, explaining the scope of the Bill, said that by giving another year’s schooling to over 400,000 children the competition of children in the labour market would incidentally be reduced. Work would thus be provided for 100,000 people now receiving unemployment benefit, which represented a saving of £3,000,000 in unemployment benefit. The total cost of raising the school age would be £5,500,000. To accommodate the children, in view of the proposed change in the leaving age 100 new schools were being built and 350 school enlargements were going on.

The Hadow Committee, it is interesting to note, was invited to “consider and report on the organisation, objective, and curriculum of courses of study suitable to children who will remain in full time attendance at schools other than secondary schools up to the'age of 15.” In other words, the Consultative Committee of the Board of Education, under the chairmanship of Sir William Hadow, contemplating the raising of the compulsory school age to 15, was faced with the big problem of providing for that huge mass of children who are now stranded at the end of the primary school course. In England and Wales “300,000 pupils,” says the “Next Step in National Education,” “are completely lost to the education system when they reach the age of 14, and an additional 220,000 when they reach the age of 15. If we assume that only full-time education can give children of these ages their full opportunity of development, and yield a maximum benefit to the nation, we find that 420,000 lose this opportunity at 14 years, and another 180,000 at 15. Ultimately, both these age groups, as is already the case in many parts of Canada and the United States of America, must he brought into the day school, if Britain is to supply the groundwork of education that is now iflcreasingly regarded as necessary in civilised communities, and this will involve an increase of over one million in the day school population.” What a contrast to a country like New Zealand, where a free place in a secondary or technical high school is offered every boy and every girl who can satisfy a qualifying examination which is hy no means exacting. But the Old Land is becoming alive to the lack of educational facilities provided for the. potential citizens of the country after the elementary school is left behind. Lively and prolonged discussions have swept round the problem of the education of the adolescent and have aroused intense public interest. Lord Eustace Percy, who was President of the Board of Education in the Baldwin Administration, in his new book, “Education at the Crossways,” declares that “we must no longer direct all educational travellers aged fourteen onwards into the congested academic road that leads to the University; we must provide proper opportunities for technical education—a road that, hitherto has been sadly neglected.” In all countries educationists are coming to recognise that we are living under new conditions that demand new methods. Obviously, however, the problem is how to make the best of the ordinary child with no academic leanings, but with other aptitudes. No one in the Homeland has suggested, as far as we have ascertained, that this bias or that bias should be the dominating purpose of elementary education. On the contrary, it is generally agreed that every child must be educated academically up to a certain point. Everybody must be. “The question,” says Lord Riddell, “is how to make the most of the child’s educational time after that point has been reached. In considering methods, we must recognise that there are different ways of training the mind.” This is not the problem affecting one class only, as our Minister of Education seems to have satisfied himself. “Educability is not a

matter of class,” says Dr. Norwood of Harrow. “Intellectual talent of every sort is produced in a certain quantity by every class of the community. But it is only in a certain quantity. From these considerations it would seem to follow,” adds the headmaster of Harrow, “that the course to be followed by all from eleven to fifteen should be one designed to produce a good physique, practical ability to be developed by more extended teaching of handicraft, a knowledge in scientific method, and a good standard of English in speech and writing, and those practical virtues of integrity, and the sense of responsibility which a good education can certainly develop.” In other words, the foundation must he well and truly laid before the building of the superstructure of advanced education is commenced.