THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, APRIL 5, 1928 EDUCATIONAL NEEDS

Wairarapa Age, 5 April 1928, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, APRIL 5, 1928 EDUCATIONAL NEEDS

A rather peculiar position arose when a deputation from the Wallington Education Board interviewed the Ministers of Education and Finance on Tuesday last, and asked that additional accommodation should be provided at the Wellington Technical School. The Minister of Education (Mr Wright) appeared to be inclined to charge the school with attracting too many pupils. Obviously, however, the scope of instruction offered at a technical school, or any other school, is determined by the policy of the Government, and the regulations of its Education Department. An education board, as one member pointed out, is concerned only with administration, and it is for the Department to determine whether the policy pursued is or is not on right lines.

The financial demands of post-prim-ary education in its several branches no doubt are making heavy inroads on the resources at the disposal of the Government, but if limits are to be imposed on these demands, the Government must show the way by deciding what restrictions, if any, are to be imposed on free post-primary instruction. It is an uncomfortable and unsettling state of affairs to have Ministers questioning the rate of expansion under a policy for which the Government and Parliament are responsible, and over which they have full control. One reason for the heavy demands made on behalf of what is called technical education in this country is that until recently it was neglected. Of late it has been expanding rapidly, but even now it is far from being on a par with ordinary secondary education in the “numbers of pupils for whom it makes provision, and in its calls upon the State finances.

In any apportionment of the necessarily limited resources available, there is no doubt that a very good case can be made out on behalf of the socalled technical schools of the Dominion. By a somewhat devious and uncertain process of development, we have reached a state of affairs in which the- staff, accommodation and equipment needed for trade evening classes are being turned to excellent account in providing day schools of a practical trend for post-primary pupils. The conditions in which these two branches of Instruction are co-ordinated must be classed ac decidedly economical. Tech-

nical school buildings and equipment are used both by day and in the evening, and under this plan better and more efficient staffs can be organised than could bo provided for either o' the two branches of instruction separately. It is no doubt right that reasonable limits should be set to the number of trade classes at technical schools, and anything in the nature of hobby classes for adults should be provided enly where the full cost of instruction is borne by the students. In any examination of the position, however, it will undoubtedly be found that the dual Institutions we call technical schools are both a valuable and an economical branch of our educational system. Consideration and inquiry will strengthen the case made out in various centres, and not least hero in Masterton, for the provision of enlarged and improved accommodation for technical education.