SMALL SCHOOLS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 280, 8 September 1936, Page 3

SMALL SCHOOLS

QUESTION OF CONSOLIDATION. SURVEY OF RURAL FACILITIES. rt°er Press Association.) WELLINGTON, September 7. An assurance that so far as it lay in his power no child would suffer educationally because lie lived in a relatively sparsely populated area is given by the Minister for Education (the Hon. P. Fraser) in a letter received by the New Zealand Farmers’ Union. The Minister’s communication was in reply to a remit passed by the recent Dominion conference of the Union urging that country children be given educational facilities more nearly equal to those enjoyed by town children to remove one of the chief disabilities ( of farm life.

“I am convinced that one of the most effective means of securing a stable and contented rural population is in providing a system of education which, while in no ivay inferior to that enjoyed in towns, will take special cognisance of the conditions peculiar to country life,” said Mr Fraser. “I wish to say that I am quite of one mind with your Union in feeling that it is only by consolidating small schools which local conditions made necessary half a century or more ago that preliminary steps in improving rural education can be made. Your general recommendation that a full survey of country 7 education be undertaken is a matter receiving my attention.” Replying to a further remit passed by the Union advocating the institution of a system of voluntary adult education similar to that afforded in Danish folk schools, the Minister said it was pertinent to ask whether New Zealand had corresponding climatic conditions and also whether the social life in the Dominion with its facilities for indulging in sport or watching others at play and its evening entertainments would not be a serious obstacle to the successful establishment and maintenance of such schools. Mr Fraser said the whole question of adult education in both town and country districts in New Zealand was at present being considered by a committee set up by the Senate of the New Zealand University.