LYNDHURST BUS SERVICE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 49, 7 December 1940, Page 4

LYNDHURST BUS SERVICE.

Sir,- —I was very interested to read in Monday’s “Guardian” about the meeting of the Ashburton High School Board, and to note the correspondence re the Lyndhurst bus service. Mr Smith is reported to have stated that the Methven District High School Committee had not considered the matter in any way. I believe that statement to be correct, but can ’Mr Smith say that as a member of the Canterbury Education Board he has had no part in bringing about the present ridiculous alterations? If so, how is it that the proposed alterations seriously shorten the services to the Lyndhurst School, and •at the same time extend the Methven one? I understand that quite recently the Lyndhurst School Committee met the transport committee of the Education Board and also the committee of the Methven School, and put forward a system of co-opera-tion which meant a saying of running the Methven-Lyndhurst bus of approximately 2000 miles per school year. Now that this proposition has been turned down, it makes one wonder if the real reason for the change can be the conservation of petrol. As a parent and interested in the education of children only, I consider that the best interests of their education can be obtained by the continuation of the present system, until (if ever) the Methven District High School can offer the same facilities as the Ashburton Technical High School for the education of country children. Further, how is it that the children now attending the Methven school are conveyed free of charge to the parents, when these facilities are not available to any others in the County? Even the excuse made, that they are picked up with the primary bus service, does.not remove the fact that that service costs money to run, which is paid for in part by the same people (by taxation) who have to pay extra for their own children to go to a post-primary school. Why should Methven be singled out for more favourable treatment than other schools in the County, unless it is to try to bolster up a school or part thereof which otherwise should not have been established? As this matter is serious as regards the education of the children, I hope the Lyndhurst School Committee and parents will express their sentiments in a manner which it demands and try to keep a service which is giving every satisfaction and which the present Prime Minister, when Minister of Education, said was’ unique in the whole of New Zealand. * PARENT.