INTERMEDIATE SCHOOLS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19513, 12 June 1933, Page 2

INTERMEDIATE SCHOOLS

CONDEMNED BY EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTE. NOT IN INTERESTS OF CHILDREN. By Telegraph—Press Association WELLINGTON, June 10. The executive of the New Zealand Educational Institute has prepared a statement in which It expresses the opinion that pursuance of the movement for establishing Intermediate schools under the regulations recently published is inadvisable. It is urged that the country is in a state of financial embarrassment, and that the establishment of the Intermediate school system under the conditions obtaining can only be effected at the expense of existing junior high schools, and the already financially strained primary system. The exclusion of five-year-olds renders reorganisation difficult.

In the opinion of the executive, substitution of 2-year for 3-year-course is not regfiarded as being in the best interests of the children, nor in accord with accepted educational policy In England and other leading educational countries, and is inconsistent with the policy formerly advanced by the Education Department and approved by the Institute. Removal of pupils from Forms 1 and 2 from the charge of senior teachers, it is stated, is not In the best interests of the children. It is asserted that the regulations are inequitable and unjustifiable as regards the proposed staffing and salaries scale. Even stronger reasons against pursuit of the present policy, states the executive, are to be found in the field of organisation and administration. It has long been recognised by those concerned with education that the greatest hindrance to effective working is division of work under separate authorities. The barriers that exist between primary, secondary, and technical schools are a source of many evils, and make It impossible that the education system/ can be worked to the best effect. Education is, or ought to be, a continuous process. The growth of the barriers referred to will impose checks and hindrances to a process that ought to be removed. The first essential is the setting up of a single authority to control all educational effort of each local area.