POST-PRIMARY SCHOOLS

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27097, 21 July 1953, Page 10

POST-PRIMARY SCHOOLS

SYSTEM OF CONTROL IN CHRISTCHURCH

STUDY BY OTHER CENTRES

One of the main reasons for holding the conference of the New Zealand Secondary School Boards’ Association in Christchurch this year was to discuss the proposed introduction of the Christchurch system of control in other

centres, said the chairman of the Avonside Girls’ High School Board of Managers (Professor G. Jobberns) last evening.

The Christchurch Post-Primary Schools’ Board, which unifies the control of secondary school boards in Christchurch, is the only one of its kind in New Zealand.

The principal of Avonside Girls’ High School (Miss V. Townsend) said that many questions had been asked about the administration of the PostPrimary Board at a conference of secondary school principals she had attended. Some had wondered if the board’s existence was justified. The secretary of the Avonside board (Mr P. J. Halligan), who is also secretary of the Post-Primary Schools’ Board, said that the controlling board had achieved many things which individual school boards could not have done. It had been instrumental in procuring a site at Cashmere for a new school. “The site is now being cleared and we hope building will begin there soon, but if there had been no central board this matter would have been noone’s business, with each school fighting for extra classrooms rather than branching out and building a new school,” he said.

The central board had acquired other sites where new schools were needed. It had provided a maintenance department, which was doing an economic service for the department, and served the needs of all the secondary schools, he said.

“Over the whole of New Zealand the cost of administration is about 30 per cent, of the incidental grant, but in Christchurch it is much less than that. Some centres must pay correspondingly more than 30 per cent.,” Mr Halligan said.

Dr. R. Winterbourn: We can claim that our system is more economic and more efficient. “The Government obviously thinks so,” said Professor Jobberns. The system allowed for individual school boards to take a close personal interest in a particular school leaving broader matters affecting secondary schools in general in the hands of the PostPrimary Schools’ Board, he said. The conference of the New Zealand Secondary School Boards’ Association will be held in Christchurch on September 1 and 2.