ACCIDENTS TO CHILDREN

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23974, 15 June 1943, Page 3

ACCIDENTS TO CHILDREN

LIABILITY FOR EXPENSES POSITION OF TEACHERS AND BOARDS From Our Own Reporter . . OAMARU, June 14. where a pupil meets with an acci-' dent on school premises or in school hours, the Education Department, the Education Board, or the teacher concerned is not liable to pay for medical expenses, or damages, and provided ordinary standards of care have been exercised by the teacher there can be no question of liability. This information was contained in a letter from the Otago Education Board to the North School Committee, Oamaru, following a request by the headmaster <Mr W. E. Judkins) that parents, and not teachers, should accompany children to the dental clyiic. The Education Board stated that no matter what precautions were taken, the risk of accidents to scholars could never be wholly diminated—in the classroom, in the course of manual training, at the swimming baths, on the playground, or on a journey tpthe dental clinic. “If boys were kept in cotton wool, some b'f them would choke themselves with- it. They would manage to have accidents,” the letter said. “You would have to consider then whether or not you "would expect a headmaster to exercise such a degree, of care that boys could never.get into mischief. Has any reasonable parent yet succeeded in exercising such care as to prevent a boy getting into mischief, and if he did what sort of boys would we produce? A child considered by its parents fit to be sent to and from school alone could be sent by a teacher unaccompanied to a dental clinic, and without any question of lack of responsibility on the part of the teacher.” The committee accepted the view of the Otago Education Board, and it was decided that pupils should henceforth go to the dental clinic unaccompanied.