IN DISREPAIR.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 127, 1 June 1938, Page 22

IN DISREPAIR.

SCHOOL BUILDINGS. "SHOCKING" CONDITIONS. I N.S.W. COMPLAINTS. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, May 27. Some months ago the Teachers' Federation of New South Wales appointed a deputation to wait on the Minister of Education and urge upon him the necessity for better homes for country teachers at lower rents. Some of the particulars supplied to the Minister by the deputation can only be described as shocking. Many of the houses used as teachers' homes in the country were built 50 years *or more ago, they have fallen into grievous disrepair and their rents are simply extortionate. At Wombah there is a teacher's house 54 years old of which the inner walls are cracked and broken, bricks are loose everywhere, and the brickwork over several doors is badly cracked. The rent was raised recently from £30 to £45 a year. At Fishers Hill the rent was raised recently from £30 to £43. The floors of the bathroom, hall and bedroom have been destroyed by white ants, and the laundry chimney and lircplaee have been blown down. In other cases there were kitchens without sinks, coppers with no bottoms, water tanks rusting away, roofs leaking, and floors so rotten as to be positively dangerous. From all this it may be gathered that the president of the Teachers' Federation was not exaggerating when he told the Minister that many of the so-called "teachers' homes" in the country were unfit for human occupation. Further Pressing Demands. Of course, the Minister promised to see what could be done to improve matters. But his Department has little surplus cash at its disposal, and it has just been (confronted with another series of demands of an equally pressing nature dealing with the playgrounds and other facilities available for the children in our primary schools. A conference of teachers and Departmental officials is to be held in Sydney from .Tune 9 to 11. to discuss "Education for a Progressive Democratic Australia." and this week, as a preparation for the conference, the Teachers' Federation called a meeting of parent and citizen associations to consider this question. At this meeting Mr. S. Lewis, who acts as organiser to the federation, gave his audience some facts and figures that positively appalled them regarding the disadvantages under which primary education is carried on here. He told them tlwt at Duhvieh Hill 1000 children are crammed into a playground a quarter of an acre in extent. At Cilebe part of the adjoining street has to be closed at lunch hour to enable the children to play there. In a school at Mascot children are taught in one room on which for six months the sun never shines. The room has no ceiling, no lined walls; there are holes in the floor large enough for a hand to go through, and the wind blowing into the building lias smashed so many blackboards that the master in charge has refused to order any more. Chi!j-»en Cooped Up. At Gowra Street 1500 children are cooped up in a small asphalt playground and when it rains they have absolutely no shelter. In a girls' junior high school at William Street the recreation area for 300 children is smaller than a tennis court.

These are all metropolitan-schools in or close to Sydney itself. In the more distant suburbs things are even worse. For instance, at Balgowlah. near Manly. 40 children sitting three at a desk, are crowded into a room 20ft by 12ft. One side of the building is completely open and the only protection against the weather is a blind which, when pulled down, reduces the room to almost total darkness. Here, as in many other schools reported upon, "the sanitary arrangements are shocking." It seems strange that in so wealthy a State the authorities so largely disregard the need for educational facilities as well as the requirements for a healthy physical life.

One of the most amazing fact* submitted to the meeting is this: That in a considerable number of our public schools the children are not allowed to run about in the playgrounds.- The rea.son is that the space is so limited that the only chance of safety for the children is to make them stand still or walk about quietly and slowly. In some of the suburban schools the congestion in the playgrounds is so extreme that boys who venture to run across them are made to stand still as a punishment for five or ten minutes.

How under such circumstances it can be possible for our teachers to develop that "sound mind in a sound body" which it is the ideal of all true educationists to build up is a question which the Minister in charge might well be called upon to answer; and if our Premier is wise lie will insist upon heavier expenditure by the Education Department on schoolrooms and playgrounds without delay.