SCHOOL BUILDING POLICY Canterbury Remit Fails

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28541, 21 March 1958, Page 3

SCHOOL BUILDING POLICY Canterbury Remit Fails

(From Our Own Reporter) TIMARU, March 20.

A recommendation that money should be spent on the building of permanent schools rather than on prefabricated buildings, was lost when put as a remit to the Dominion Federation of School Committees’ Associations’ national conference.

The Canterbury remit said that, as it was uneconomic from a longterm point of view, even in time of financial stringency; to expend public money on prefabricated. buildings, the Canterbury asso-l ciation strongly recommended that the money should be spent on building permanent schools or at least the nuclei of such schools. Proposing the remit, Mr A. Greenwood said he was not happy with the motion and would not speak to it as he could not see how else the children could be accommodated.

The modernisation of older schools with reasonable economic lives to a basic standard of school building requirements was the subject of a combined WellingtonAuckland remit. The remit, which was passed by the federation, said that the basic standard should be laid down as a minimum for old and new schools, and the Government should make more finance available to education boards in order to facilitate the modernisation of older schools to that standard so that the children attending the older schools might have equal opportunity of education with those attending modern schools.

The Education Department is to be asked to give consideration to establishing accommodation to obviate the necessity for uneconomic bus routes where it is found necessary to establish 'district high schools in growing country districts. Proposing a remit to that effect, Mr W. R. E. Heenan (Northern Southland) quoted the position at Lumsden, where a school could not be established because a bus service would prove uneconomic. “I can’t envisage any bus route that could be so uneconomic that it would be more expensive than running a hostel,” said Mr S. R Heppleston (Wellington). “The Minister has told us he hasn’t the money, and I can’t see him playing ball in this matter.” On the suggestion of the president (Mr V. W. Wilson) the word “hostel” was deleted from the remit in favour of “accommodation.”

Mr J. M. Cowie (Northland) said the federation should drive home to the department its responsibility to provide secondary education to those needing it in outlying districts. “If they say a bus route is uneconomic, then it is the department’s responsibility to provide some alternative so that secondary, education can be provided,” Mr Cowie said. The remit was carried.