The Waipa Post. Printed on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. SATURDAY, JUNE 5, 1926. BETTER EDUCATIONAL FACILITIES.

Waipa Post, Volume 31, Issue 1766, 5 June 1926, Page 4

The Waipa Post. Printed on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. SATURDAY, JUNE 5, 1926. BETTER EDUCATIONAL FACILITIES.

THE gloomy outlook, or rather absence of outlook, ascribed to Mr Co'lquhoun, president of the Secondary Schools Assistants’ Association, when surveying the trend of education in New Zealand in his presidential address at the annual meeting, in which he i s reported to have said,: “We are going somewhere, but only God knows where,” is no doubt shared by some of his confreres, but we advance the opinion that he is in a minority. Teachers in the secondary departments are in a happier situation for estimating reliably the benefits of "education, for in secondary education life directions begin to declare;; themselves.

Differentiation of tastes, of powers, |

and of ideas, is noticeable, and opportunities for suitable work are being thought over.

The Junior High School idea seems to be the one which is producing the mental obfuscation in Mr Colquhoun. But surely the Junior High School idea is creating a deliberate attempt to go somewhere.” It is now an idea which is general is being accepted everywhere. No d,oubt the reasons urged for its acceptance are often psychologically tenuous. Yet the main reason i s correct. The continuance of a restricted mental pabulum, when the mind is ready and eager for more food and more varied food, results in dwarfed growth. It is, also, being more and more admitted, even demanded, that if the State is to compel education up to any given age then it must conform such education 10 the best possibilities of the pupils. It is not difficult to picture the starved intellects of the past under an illiberal curriculum, the same for all pupils up to the school-leaving age. Recent discussion amongst educational leaders ia London, including Dr. Burt and Dr. Ballard, shows unanimity on the prill ■ ciple of an enriched curriculum after the age of eleven years. Moreover, it seems not improbable, in view of the light shed on mental power by the mental tests, that in the future the London County Council will change the age for junior scholarships from its present range of ten to eleven years to a nine to twelve years’ range, for it is proved beyond dispute that some children of nine years have a mentality of twelve years.

Again there is a fairly general agreement in New Zealand that “where we are going ” is toward a Junior High School system with adaption, first to large city schools, second, to country town areas; third, to thinly-scat-tered areas with a District High School, so that in the last the' Junior High School would be the link between the purely secondary classes and the classes of the elementary school, and in the first it would be 'the foundation of the secondary school. Such, we would point out, 'is almost identical with the recommendations recently made to the New Zealand Educational Institute by its Recess Committee. Mr Tate’s report of 1925 on post-primary education in New Zealand speaks of the Kowliai Junior High School, Auckland as “one of the most hopeful and instructive advances in public education.'’ Dr. Marsden, assistant-Director of Education, said at Wellington that he was at a loss to know just where education in New Zealand was drifting —surely a curious admission.- All new adventures involve an element of risk. Pre-perception, imaginative' pre-crea-tion of the conditions, and prophecy of the results are all to some degree fallible. We may be moving along a road that is not as smooth as it appears. For instance, new developments mean new buildings, new equipment, and probably more teachers. If the taxpayer is informed how much he must make and maintain this road, he may hesitate. But of the general desirability of 'it, he will, once he grasps the position, be in no doubt. Mr Colquhoun’s advice in this respect is certainly sound—that changes should be made gradually without causing disruption, by retaining the present organisation as far as possible, and by aiming at as little extra cost as is compatible with efficiency, '

We need not feel we do not know where we are going, provided that in all new provision for education we are aiming at enriching Individual and communty life. We have comrades on the road. The meeting at London, to which we have referred, was insistent in its demand for a new type of school after eleven years. One danger is that such schools will foster the academic type of mind, that is, the snobbery of the black coat, as Dr Lawson called in his article on “Education in Rugby” in the Press a few days age. To avoid this in New Zealand, pa'cnts must support teachers in the demand that matriculation is not the only goal. There must he a variety of courses. If this is done, there is no fear about “where we are going.” and efficient citizenship must be a “terminus and quern,” and ideal to be striven for. There is no reason for dejection, though we can agree with the president of the Secondary Schools Association that the profession in the Dominion was really lagging behind and that there is need for a curriculum more in harmony with life conditions. It is not strange that Mr R. A. Wright, in his first public speech as Minister of Education said he must be cautious when exports were in doubt, and that he was faced with an excessive output of professional men and too feiv skilled artisans. The curriculum, as Dr Marsden says, needs the introduction of reason, for in secondary schools it was lagging behind requirements. But it is weak to say .we do not know where we are going. What are our experts for? It certainly would be a strange phenomenon if the opening of new roads, or the improving of old ones, obscured the view ahead of the traveller. We certainly are going somewhere and that “.somewhere” is a brighter school life and a richer crop of citizenship.