ACCOMMODATION AND STAFFING

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24870, 9 May 1946, Page 3

ACCOMMODATION AND STAFFING

MINISTER DISCUSSES SCHOOL PROBLEMS (P.A.) AUCKLAND, May 8. The problems of the Government in providing sufficient accommodation and staff for schools were outlined by the Minister of Education (the Hon. H. G. R. Mason) at last night’s meeting of the Education Conference. It was not a question of money, said the Minister, referring to the limited material resources hampering the building of schools. The resources of the country had not been equal to the needs, he added. Seventy per cent, of the male teachers had served in the armed forces, and at present 300 were taking refresher courses. Student teachers had also been affected by the war. but training colleges were now full. The increasing birth-rate, the admission of flve-year-old children, and the raising of tha school leaving age had added to staffing and accommodation problems. The conference carried a resolution urging the Government to increase the education grant to provide certain minimum requirements, including reduction in the size of classes to a maximum of 30, with a teacher to each class, primary schools to be limited to a maximum of about 500 pupils, and the provision of sufficient capitation funds to school committees to provide adequate care, heating, and maintenance of school, grounds. Adequate playing grounds were also urged. “Despite the Minister’s assurances things are not satisfactory,” said the secretary of the Auckland Federation of Parent-Teacher Associations (Mr A. K. Lambly). “If finance was not the difficulty, why was it that school committees and other organisations were still having to find 25 per cent, to 40 per cent, of the cost of running schools?” he asked. Parents and taxpayers who found this money were not satisfied. .