MINING SCHOOL AT WESTPORT

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27367, 4 June 1954, Page 8

MINING SCHOOL AT WESTPORT

MOVE TOr GRANITY OPPOSED (From Our Own Reporter) WESTPORT, June 3.

The Westport School of Mines council is to ask the Mines Department to allow the Westport building to remain as the centre of instruction for the Buller district. A special committee, which recently investigated mining education in New Zealand, recommended that a school should be established at Granity. Speaking at a meeting of the council at Westport, Mr M. Lightbown, said there was only one first-year student at Granity. Most students, he said, would prefer to remain at Westport. The school should not be shifted. Mr E. W. Pearson said that the committee’s recommendation was out of tone with the rest of its report. The report said that schools should be in the best place for classes. Mr J. W. Wearne, the acting-chair-man, said he feared that the transport problem would rule out the prospect of establishing a school at Granity. Mr W. Brown said that when the Reefton school closed down there had been a suggestion that work from that district would come to Buller. In that case a school at Granity would be too far away. It was also decided to ask that any reduction in allowances for students should apply only when a miner is under 19 instead of under 21 as recommended in the committee’s report.