SCHOOL AGRICULTURE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 72, Issue 92, 18 April 1929, Page 11

SCHOOL AGRICULTURE

INSTRUCTOR'S REPORT At Wednesday’s meeting of the Wanganui Education Board, the chief agriculture instructor (Air J. B. Hogg) reported as follows with reference to agricultural work in the schools during March: “Instructor’s visitors have been made for thc purpose of arranging schemes of work, and reviewing the outdoor work of the past season. What has been seen of the latter is fair, rote book ami chart records of the work being comparatively well done, bu: ihe actual plots being on the whole rot quite satisfactory, though improved on those of last year. This, while in a jCw cases the fault of the teacher concerned, i«- generally the result of the summer break, ami would seem to be more or less unavoidable. The plots are now being sown down in winter crop an.l appropriate lessons taken on this phase c.L the work. Schemes of work are being arranged and while thc new syllabus is being drawn upon to some extort, most schools are ratbpr continuing to adhere to the BoanUs pamphlet. Nature study schemes arc also receiving more attention than in the past, and every opportunity is being taken to assist thc junior teachers in this work. “It is pleasing to note the Minister of Education emphasising the value of agriculture as a school subject, and we hi.pe thc time is not far distant when a much greater proportion of the school time will be allotted to the subject and an attempt made to consolidate the total instruction throughout the Dominion, carrying the child from the earliest standards, through high school and university, and whoro such secondary education is not followed, to the farms themselves. There is no doubt that closer co-operation should exist between the Departments vitally concerned, and the Afinistcr’s statements would seem to indicate that such is being considered.”