VALUE OF WORK IN TECHNICAL SCHOOLS IS EXPLAINED.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18546, 21 August 1928, Page 9

VALUE OF WORK IN TECHNICAL SCHOOLS IS EXPLAINED.

DEVELOPMENT OF PUPILS STIMULATED BY COURSE

(Special to the “Star”.) WELLINGTON, August 21

The place of technical schools and colleges in the education system of New Zealand, and the lines upon which they should work were the subject of the major portion of the address of the president of the Technical Education Association of New Zealand (Mr H. S. W. King) in his remarks at the opening of the association’s conference today. In his address, said Mr King, he had again used as his main theme a retrospect of the educational movements in other parts of the Empire; more particularly in Great Britain, owing to the important nature of the recommendations of those concerned in the production of what is known as “The Hadow Report.” The second part of the report of the Committee on Education and Industry (England and Wales), known as the “Malcolm Report,” has only just come to hand; and, although many of its recommendations might not be altogether applicable to New Zealand, owing to the difference of trade conditions and environment, the result of the work of this important committee was well worthy of their consideration.

The Hadow Report. The report of the Consultative Committee on the Education of the Adolescent issued by the British Board of Education in December, 1926, was certain to influence the future development of New Zealand’s system of postprimary education, said Mr King. Its order of reference authorised it to consider and report upon the organisation, objective and curriculum of courses of study suitable for children who will remain in full-time attendance at schools other than secondary schools up to the age of fifteen, regard being had to the requirements of a good general education, the desirability of providing a reasonable variety of curriculum for children of varying tastes and abilities and to the probable occupations of the pupils.

The main conclusions arrived at were:

(1) That the primary stage of education should be regarded as ending at the age of eleven years, and that postprimary education should extend to at least the age of fifteen years, which the committee recommends should be made compulsory.

(2) The schools dealing -with the secondary stage of education should include :

(a) Grammar schools of the secondar3 r type represented by our high schools and grammar schools carrying the pupils forward to the age of at least sixteen. (b) Modern schools with a less academic bias, giving a larger place to various forms of practical work than is customary in secondary schools and intended for pupils remaining for three or four years. (c) Departments of the elementary Schools providing post-primary education for pupils who do not go to new secondary schools. (3) That in spite of the multiplicity of existing examinations, there should, after a short period, be established a leaving examination for pupils of the modern schools to be taken at the age of fifteen.

Ends of Human Life. In the words of the report “there are three great ends of human life and activity which the scheme will help to promote. One is the forming and strengthening of character—individual and national character—through the placing of youth in the hour of its growth, in the fair meadow of a congenial and inspiring environment. Another is the training of boys and girls to delight in pursuits and rejoice in accomplishments—work in music and art; work in wood and in metals; work in literature and the record of human history—which may become the recreations and the ornaments of hours of leisure in maturer years. And still another is the awakening and guiding of the practical intelligence, for the better and more skilled service of the community in all its multiple business and complex affairs—an end which cannot be dismissed as “utilitarian” in any country, and least of all in a country like ours, so highly industrialised, and so dependent on the success of its industries, that it needs for its success, and even for its safety, the best and most highly-trained skill of its citizens. The forming and strengthening of character, the training <,[ the tastes which will fill and dignify leisure; the awakening and guilding of the intelligence especially of its practical side — these are the ends which we have had in view’; and it is in their name, and because we think it may serve, in its measure, towards their attainments, that we commend this report to our readers.” “Encouraging Report.”

The importance of the report to those engaged in administering technical education* in New Zealand is undoubtedly found in the emphasis placed on the need for modern schools side by side with the other types of secondary school, said Mr King. Too often in the past it had been asserted in New Zealand that the technical education system was wrong in principle; that a cultured education was impossible in a technical school; that the early special isation practiced therein was wrong and that practical work had no educational value. It was, therefore, refreshing to those engaged in administering tech nieal schools to find so much encourage ment in the report of the Consultative Committee.

For the formation and strengthening of character, boys and girls in the period of adolescence must be follow ing courses of study that are congenia and of interest to them. There are many minds, and by no means minds of an inferior order for which the most power ful stimulus to development is someform of practical or constructive activity, he added, quoting from th» report, which continued:

“The *work of the school must not seem, as sometimes, perhaps, it still

does, the antithesis of real life, but the complement of it. Children must as far as possible be helped to feel that when attending school, they are handling, though in a different atmosphere and from another angle, the matters which seem to them interesting and important outside school. Its significance in short, must be made as plain to them as possible by being obviously related to the work of the world, as they see it in the lives.of their parents, their older brothers and sisters, and their friends.”

Need for Practical Work. One of the main conclusions of the committee is that a humane or liberal education is not one given through books alone, but one ■which brings children into contact with the larger interests of mankind, and “the aim of the modern schools should be to provide such an education by means of a curriculum containing large opportunities for practical work and related to living interests.” Accordingly “ practical work ” in its several forms must fill a large place in the curriculum. But this does not mean that the pupils' intellectual training is to be regarded as of secondary importance. It has been amply shown that for many children the attainment of skill in some form of practical work in science, handwork or the domestic arts may be a stimulus to higher intellectual effort. In other words, the child’s predilections being towards things practical, his intellectual activities are most strongly stimulated when they are directed to prac tical ends. Moreover, apart from the question of stimulus, boys and girls with the type of interests we Have in view can grasp concepts through practical work much more easily than by devoting long periods to the abstract study of ideas. The abundant practical work which we wish to see provided in the new schools is thus to be regarded partly as a means of intellectual training specially suitable to the interests and capacities of the majority of the pupils. We must, however, add that the at tainment of a reasonable standard of practical skill is in itself an object of importance in a modern school, particularly if it leads to mastery of one or more of the simple art-s and crafts whose educational value we emphasise 4 se where. “ J think that from these words of •-.he report we may confidently declare hat our Technical High School courses re so designed that for the great maority of our boys and girls they would ’-e approved by the leading educationilists of Britain, and that following his well supported declaration the New Zealand Departmnet of Educaion should develop our Technical High Schools as a first duty in providing secondary education,” said Mr King.