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Conference was a great success. It was, I think, the first time that a complete cross-section of the community has been gathered together specificially to discuss education. A series of recommendations were made to the Government, some of which, as will appear later in this report, have already been put into operation. T hope to have more of them carried out during the coming year. Much of the success of the Conference was due to the skilled chairmanship of Mr. W. H. Cocker, M.A., LL.B., President of Auckland University College, and to the thorough preparatory work of the Secretary, Mr. C. L. Bailey, M.A. To them and to all those who took part in the Conference I wish to tender my thanks. It was no small achievement that 120 men and women of different interests and different creeds should find a common basis for their thinking in their desire for the welfare of the children of New Zealand. A report on the Conference is being prepared by the Chairman and the Secretary. Accrediting and the Secondary Curriculum. —The system of accrediting for entrance to the University came into operation for the first time during the year, although it will not be fully operative until 1945. As I explained in my last annual report, the adoption of accrediting by the University frees the post-primary schools from the domination of the old University Entrance Examination and gives a new significance to the Department's School Certificate Examination, which will now become the accepted test of a completed secondary education for the great bulk of the pupils who do not desire to go on to University studies. The report of the Consultative Committee on the Post-Primary Curriculum, which sets out proposed changes in the syllabus for the School Certificate Examination consequent upon its new status, was given very careful study during the year by all the interested parties. I invited the fullest criticism of these important recommendations, and as a result of useful comments received and of discussions with representatives of the bodies concerned, many modifications have been made in the original proposals. There are, of course, still some critics, but lam very pleased with the enthusiastic reception accorded the report in most quarters, and am convinced that the scheme in its amended form represents a great forward step in secondary education that is welcomed by an overwhelming majority of teachers as well as by members of the public who understand its full significance. Draft regulations based on the amended report have been prepared and will be distributed for further criticism before they are gazetted in 1945. It will not be possible to bring the syllabus for the new School Certificate Examination into force before 1946, but already many secondary and technical schools are taking advantage of the freedom the new scheme will give to broaden and enrich the curriculum for their junior forms. Raising of the School Age. -The school-leaving age was raised by Order in Council to fifteen years as from Ist February, 1944. It was fully expected that this would throw a heavy strain on accommodation and staffing in the intermediate and post-primary schools, especially as the crest of the wave of school population caused by the return of the five-year-olds to school in 1936 was expected to strike Form 111 in 1944. I considered, however, that some temporary inconvenience was preferable to postponing indefinitely a reform that had been foreshadowed in a dormant section in the statute in 1920. In actual fact, the change was made with less difficulty than I had anticipated, even though the accommodation problem was accentuated by an unexpected but altogether desirable tendency for parents to keep their children at post-primary school for a longer period than ever before. The pressure on school accommodation has been felt most seriously in Auckland, largely because of the drift of population to the city resulting from the operation of war industries. The situation has been met, here as elsewhere, by the use of prefabricated class-rooms and by the planned distribution of pupils to the schools where rooms were available. I am indebted to the controlling authorities of the schools for their co-operation in this complex task. So great has been the increase of school population in Auckland City that in 1945 three new intermediate schools (Epsom Normal, Balmoral, and Avondale) and one new technical school (Avondale) will be established. The Avondale Technical and the Avondale Intermediate Schools are housed in buildings erected as a United States naval hospital to plans I originally approved with a view to such a development. These school buildings are models of their kind. It is anticipated that it will be necessary for the newly established Balmoral Intermediate School to develop into a post-primary school to meet the city's rapidly growing needs. Problems of staffing and accommodation, of course, are not the only, or perhaps even the main ones resulting from the raising of the school age. A more difficult and subtle group of problems is concerned with the type of education to be given to the academically less able fourteen-year-olds now compelled to stay on at school. The intermediate schools and the technical schools are, in general, admirably organized to cater for these children, and the changes already mentioned in the secondary curriculum will help the secondary and district high, schools to provide courses specially adapted to their needs, though more adequate facilities for practical work are needed by some of them. The Department has assisted the smaller country schools to deal with this new problem through its Correspondence School and through the Education Gazette, and the New Zealand Educational Institute published an excellent practical report on the matter. As soon as conditions permit, however, I feel that we must do even more to help the country schools to meet this special problem. Technical Education. —For reasons set out in my last annual report, the Hon. the Minister of Labour and I recommended the setting-up of the Commission of Inquiry into Apprenticeship and Related Matters under the Chairmanship of His Honour Mr. Justice Tyndall. This Commission took evidence throughout New Zealand and presented its report in November, 1944. The report is under consideration by the Government and it is too early as yet to say to what extent its policy will be adopted. It is quite clear, however, both from the recommendations of the Commission and from the evidence which was given before it, that the technical schools must in future play an even bigger part in training for the skilled trades than they have in the past. It seems certain that the technical schools

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