WIDER SERVICE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 171, 22 July 1930, Page 7

WIDER SERVICE.

MEDICAL INSPECTION.

SECONDARY SCHOOLS' NEED.

EXTENSION INTENDED.

ANNOUNCEMENT BY MINISTER.

(By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.)

WELLINGTON, this day.

As soon as the necessary financial provision can be made, the Health Department's medical inspection service will be extended to the secondary schools of the Dominion, according to a statement made to-day by the Minister of Health, the Hon. A. J. Stallworthy.

The Minister .explained that the service at present operated throughout the primary schools, and when inquiries were made last year into the proposed extension, the Director-General reported that there was no doubt as to the desirability of secondary pupils receiving regular medical attention.

"At present," the Minister added, "a small percentage of secondary school pupils are examined annually by school medical officers, arrangements being made by which all applicants for entrance into the teaching profession are examined one or two years before the termination of their school life. By this means unsuitable candidates are rejected at a time when they are able to devote themselves to preparing for another means of livelihood.

"The evidence of school medical officers in general indicates that the standard of physical fitness of applicants for entrance to the teaching profession is not as high as it should be. Moreover, the amount of remedial defect found among them is sufficient to indicate that the supervision of the health of boys and girls in secondary schools is inadequate. By extending medical inspection to secondary schools, candidates for entrance to the teaching profession or the Public Service would be able to produce a record card showing his medical history from the time of' his beginning school until the day of his seeking employment.

"The visits of tlie cliiei: pliysical instructor of the Education Department to secondary schools have led him to the opinion that such medical inspection should be instituted."