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Graphic: An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand 1966.

Warning

This information was published in 1966 in An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, edited by A. H. McLintock. It has not been corrected and will not be updated.

Up-to-date information can be found elsewhere in Te Ara.

EDUCATION, POST-PRIMARY

Contents


Correspondence School

Thirty-four post-primary schools, principally single-sex schools, have boarding departments ranging in size from 73 to over 300. Extension of boarding accommodation at schools has not kept pace with the demand for places, despite the fact that the provision of very much improved post-primary facilities in country districts has reduced the proportion of children who must leave their homes to obtain education beyond the primary stage. Many of the boarding establishments have a considerable waiting list of intending boarders, and priorities have to be established. In general, the highest priority is given to pupils in a school's area who cannot travel each day to a school from their homes because of the remoteness of the district in which they live. Form VI pupils who have completed a School Certificate course at a local school, often a district high school which has no adequate facilities for Form VI work, are also given a high priority. Those country pupils who cannot attend a local school and who cannot or who do not wish to go to a boarding school or to board privately in a centre with a post-primary school, may be placed on the roll of the Department of Education's Correspondence School. This school gives instruction in a wide range of post-primary subjects from Form III to Form VI. In addition to providing full-time post-primary education for some children in remote areas and for some others who cannot attend school because of a disability, the Correspondence School supplements the work of the normal schools by giving instruction in individual subjects which the schools cannot offer. This is a very large undertaking at any time; but when staff shortages occur a much greater reliance is placed on the services of the Correspondence School. Without this school, substantial numbers of pupils would be denied education at the post-primary level, or at least an important part of it. The Correspondence School is similar to a district high school in that it has one principal in charge of a primary and a post-primary department. The post-primary section is, however, very much larger than the primary, for most primary school pupils can reach even a small local school. Teachers in the post-primary department are paid on the same scale as teachers in the normal post-primary schools and they are inspected and classified as are all other post-primary teachers.

A very important feature of post-primary education in New Zealand is the wide range of extra-curricular activities which play a significant part in the life of each school. In these activities members of staff take an active interest and spend a great deal of time. Almost every pupil belongs to some school sports team or plays some game organised within the school, and the schools themselves have extensive playing areas which are maintained in good order. There is also a strongly growing interest in non-sporting activities, including music and drama, and in clubs of almost every kind. An account of the extra-curricular work of any school can be read in any school magazine, a publication for which pupils assume the major responsibility. Many schools, too, have a cadet company in which boys are given some basic military training.

Along with the standards of endeavour insisted on in the classroom, the scope and effectiveness of a school's extra-curricular activities contribute to its general spirit and tone. By overseas standards no New Zealand post-primary school is old, but many have already established distinctive traditions.

by Joseph Langmuir Hunter, M.A., B.SC., Chief Inspector of Post-primary Schools, Department of Education, Wellington.