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in the four main centres, and perhaps those in one or two of the secondary centres, must in the luture prepare themselves to develop their senior work and to assume more the character of senior technological institutes. Already the Auckland Technical School has been forced by sheer pressure of numbers to hand over its junior work in certain courses to other city schools. The introduction of any measure of daylight training, as suggested by the Commission, would greatly accelerate this develomcnt in the bigger technical schools. The technical schools in the larger cities where there are also secondary schools have not been placed by the University on the list of accrediting schools because it does not appear to lie their function to do Sixth Form work preparatory to entrance to the University. The.new School Certificate prescriptions, however, will have an important influence on technical schools, since it will be possible for a technical-school pupil to qualify, with a group of practical and technical subjects, (or exactly the same certificate as will be secured by the majority of pupils at secondary schools. District High Schools. —There are limits to the diversification of curricula that can be introduced into a small secondary department, and the district high schools have always suffered from their efforts to do two things that are not always compatible in a school with a small staff and little equipment —namely, to prepare a few pupils for University studies and to prepare others for immediate participation in rural pursuits. It is hoped that the new secondary curriculum will help many of the small district high schools to solve this dilemma. Most of the district high schools have not been placed by the University on the list of accrediting schools. To prevent any possible consequent injustice to country children the Government last year instituted a system of secondary-school bursaries of an annual value of £40 each to enable country children who have passed the School Certificate Examination to attend secondary schools on the accrediting list in order to prepare themselves further for University studies. This means that the smaller district high schools will be free to concentrate their limited energies on bringing pupils up to the School Certificate stage, and, because of the wide range of subjects, practical as well as theoretical, for the School Certificate Examination, they should be able as never before to prepare the majority of the pupils for life in the country at the same time as they prepare the academic few for University studies. Any pupil who so wishes can, of course, take University Entrance by examination no matter what school he has attended, provided he has attained the age of sixteen. it is realized that if the district high schools are to provide a genuinely enriched curriculum for country pupils they will have to be more generously treated than ever before in the way of staffing and equipment. A scheme is being worked out for the improvement of their staffing, and already a small beginning has been made with equipment by giving them for the first time grants for libraries, science equipment, and physical education. Much more needs to be done, however, and 1 should like to see in the immediate future a special effort made to assist district high schools. Primary School Curriculum and Free Text-books.—The systematic review of the primaryschool curriculum by committees representative of the Department and of teachers organizations, which was mentioned in my last report, was continued during .1944. The report of the Health Education Committee was circulated during the year, and the report of the Committee on English will be published early in 1945. A Committee on History and Geography was set up and will report during 1945. Arithmetic books published during the year and distributed free to all schools, private as well as public, were the first text-books to be issued under this scheme. Unfortunately, because of shortage of labour and materials for printing, the text-books have not appeared as quickly as could have been wished, but they are of excellent quality, and I am hopeful of having the production speeded up during 1945 so that the arithmetic books can be completed and the English ones begun. In New Zealand, as in Australia, England, and the United States of America, there has been some talk during recent years ot the effect of the " new education on standards of work in the three Ks. I dealt with this matter at considerable length in " Education Today and Tomorrow " (pages 24 26), and it is too complex a topic to be covered adequately in the short compass of this report. There is one factor, however, I should like to mention which is too often completely ignored by recent critics of the schools. During the war there have been up to 70 per cent, of our male primary-school teachers in the Services, and, at a time when most manufacturers and business men are finding it impossible to maintain fully the quality of their products, it would be a poor compliment to these skilled teachcrs to maintain that the work of the schools has not been affected by their absence. Certain steps have been taken by the Department over the past two years to maintain and improve standards in the " tool " subjects : — (a) I have already mentioned the systematic review of whole syllabus to eliminate everything that is not essential. i (/;) Good text-books based on the new syllabus are being prepared. The lack of good textbooks has meant a great waste of time and energy in the schools. (c) Inspectors of Schools have been asked to pay particular attention to standards of work, and to accept nothing less than the best efforts of which children arc capable. (d) Every effort is being made to improve the skill of teachers at their craft, because all real standards depend in the long-run on the skill and integrity of the teacher. (e) A stricter standard is being demanded of head teachers in the granting of the Primary School Certificate. (f) The raising of the school-leaving age gives more time to ensure that every child before lie leaves school reaches a satisfactory standard in all essential subjects.

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