AGRICULTURAL INSTRUCTION AND TRAINING.

New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Volume XIII, Issue 4, 20 October 1916, Page 336

AGRICULTURAL INSTRUCTION AND TRAINING.

RECOMMENDATIONS OF COUNCIL OF EDUCATION.

The recommendations in regard to agricultural and industrial education, framed by the Council of Education at its general meeting held at Wellington in September, are recorded below for convenient reference. It will be observed that the recommendations provide for a complete sequence in agricultural. and industrial training from the very elementary stages represented by nature-study and manual and domestic instruction provided for in the primary schools to the most advanced stages of agricultural and technical education required for the training of experts and instructors in these subjects. Another feature of the recommendations is the ample provision therein made for the training of school-teachers and other instructors on whose efficiency the success of the scheme naturally depends.

The recommendations are as follows :

1. That nature-study and the school-garden should be included in the course of instruction of every primary school, the school-garden being used as the laboratory for simple experiments on and for observation of the common facts of plantlife. ' •

2. That in every locality, whether at a district high school, technical high school, or high school, there should be provided an intermediate agriculture course of two or three years, both theoretical and practical. (This need not injure the general education of the pupils who take it.)

2A. That all district high schools with an average attendance not exceeding seventy should follow exclusively an agricultural or other industrial course. 3. That for those who have left the primary school at fourteen years of age to go to work there should be courses, if possible during the day, for part of the year but continuing for three or four years, of similar range and standard that is, secondary or intermediate in character.

Note. —Such classes might be held, say, one day a week or two half-days twice a we for thirty weeks in the year, if possible ; or if not then, say for two days a week for twenty weeks, or five or six days a week for three or four weeks- in each case the busiest part of the year being avoided. 3A. That for those who have spent at least two years in one of the courses 2 or 3 above, and who are prepared to give their whole time for two years longer to instruction in agriculture, there should be established in each Island a farm school. 4. That every male student of a training-college should go through a course in agriculture not lower in standard than the intermediate course just referred to.

Special teachers of agriculture would be required for these courses 2,3, 4 . 4a. That for male teachers agriculture of the D standard should be a compulsory subject in the C and D certificate examinations. 5 That the Agriculture Department and the Education Department should co-operate to make one of the State experimental farms (say, Ruakura) a place for the further training of those who have completed one of the intermediate courses 2,3, or 4whether such persons are intending to be teachers or farmers. 6. That to qualify themselves to be efficient teachers of rural schools, ex-students of training-colleges should be encouraged to take one year at such experimental farm. Special inducements should be held out to students to take this course by assuring to them an appointment to a rural school of Grade II or upwards, and a minimum salary of, say, £l7O per annum. ' .

7. That to qualify themselves to be special teachers of agriculture (e.g., for the intermediate course 2 or 3) those who have taken one or two years at a trainingcollege should take a course of two years at the experimental farm ; and that the minimum salary for a certificated teacher thus qualified to be a special teacher should be £250 per annum. (The allowance payable to students taking the course 6 or 7 should be not less than £35 per annum, exclusive of the cost of board and tuition.)

Students under classes 6 and 7 should enter into bond to teach for not less than five years in New Zealand.

8. Other students should receive an allowance of £2O per annum, in addition to board and lodging, and, besides, in the case of those selected to work for half time or less, wages at a reasonable rate.

9. That Senior National Scholarships should be tenable at Ruakura.

10. That to train scientific experts in agriculture there should, by co-operation between the Departments named, be admitted to one of the experimental farms set apart for higher research in agriculture (say, Weraroa) youths who are holders of a leaving certificate (by preference a higher leaving certificate, a foreign language being not, however, compulsory).

That bursaries similar in value and conditions of tenure to the home science bursaries now tenable by women at the University of Otago be offered to qualified young men who wish to take a three-years course at Weraroa.

11. That National Research Scholarships should be tenable at Weraroa.

12 (a.) That the principle of compulsory attendance at continuation courses of youths between fourteen and seventeen years of age should be adopted throughout the Dominion.

(b.) That it should not be lawful to employ any person between the ages of fourteen and seventeen unless such person could produce a certificate of satisfactory attendance and progress at such classes.

(c.) That time off should be allowed by employers to the extent of at least one half-day a week to enable persons in their employ between the ages of fourteen and seventeen to attend continuation classes.

(d.) That wherever possible the continuation classes should be held in the daytime. '

13. That students who have made satisfactory attendance and progress in any trade class at an approved technical school should receive recognition of the fact when applying for admission to the corresponding trade department of the Public Service.

14. That the chairman communicate to the Lincoln Agricultural College authorities the recommendations made concerning agricultural education, and ask them to consider how far they would be prepared to render assistance on the lines indicated in this report.

A large stack of red-clover hay at Ruakura was recently chaffed, and it is intended to feed this to the horses mixed in with oat-sheaf chaff. By this method there is no loss from dropping of the leaf, which is unavoidable when clover is fed as hay in racks.

At Ruakura during the hardest part of the winter large quantities of meadow and lucerne hay, pea-straw, oat and barley straw, and mangels were carted out daily to the stock in the paddocks, the farm being very heavily stocked. The heaviest feeding was carried out on the poorest swamp land (fields 22A and 42). It is hoped that very beneficial results will follow this system of bringing in poor swamp land of the Ruakura type. Apart from the treading-out of sorrel, the land is consolidated and receives a large amount of animal manure by the process of stocking and feeding. ■ . . • ,