DUAL HANDICAP

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 163, 12 July 1945, Page 6

DUAL HANDICAP

AUCKLAND SCHOOLS

TWO UNSOLVED PROBLEMS

Two unsolved problems in the educational field are the almost complete lack of single men to staff one-teacher country schools where there is only bach accommodation, and the slow progress of building operations for the enlargement of overcrowded secondary departments of district high schools.

Since early in the war the smallest country schools have fared badly for teachers because the demands of the Army and the Air Force have deprived them of their only source of staff —unmarried men who can live in one room. The accommodation available is insufficient for married men, apart from the fact that the positions are not of a grade married men would normally fill, and the location of the schools makes them unsuitable and unattractive for women . teachers. Some single men teachers have been on war service for four or five years.

Auckland, in proportion to its size, has fewer schools with attendances below ten than any other education district, but it has its share of the difficulties of maintaining education "On the fringe" where the population is sparse and community life is almost non-existent. In some cases it is possible to keep these miniature schools going by the employment of uncertificated teachers, as a wartime emergency, but in other instances instruction by correspondence has to take the place of ordinary schooling.

A few children receive a boarding allowance of 10/ a week to assist them to attend schools which require them to live away from home, and a small number receive a grant for the payment of fares where they have to travel a considerable distance. Where Various alternatives have to be considered the majority of parents appear to favour the correspondence method, and it is. estimated that several thousand children in New Zealand now know education only as a course of studies, devoid of school life. For them the home is the school and the mother of the familV tTio rticr-inlinpi-ian.

High School Difficulties Secondary departments of district high schools have been hard-pressed since the raising of ; the school age brought an influx of 15-year-olds, and as there was little classroom accommodation to spare before it is easy to imagine the crowded conditions to-day. Outside the city in a few of the larger towns the secondary department provide the only postprimary education, and the rise in attendances has brpught an almost general advance in grade, which means more teachers and perhaps more diversity in the curriculum. The inevitable crush, which has compelled the use of halls.and other available buildings,'has, however, had a most cram' "ag effect. Also, it is in such pla - .> that the severity of the winter is to-day most acutely felt. At the moment, owing to the shortage of building materials, there is no ground for general expectation that the situation will be speedily remedied. ,:' *

Use of public halls and church halls is stated to be much more common in the country than in the urban and. suburban areas of Auckland, where- considerable relief has been given by the building of prefabricated classrooms and the conversion of buildings, formerly occupied by the armed services.