PRESENT SCHOOL BUILDINGS

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28894, 14 May 1959, Page 24

PRESENT SCHOOL BUILDINGS

Cheapness With Efficiency (New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, May 13. School buildings built at present were economic and the cheapest and most efficient public buildings in the country, Mr C. G. S. Ellis, Assistant Director of Education (administration) told the annual meeting of the New Zealand Educational Institute today. Reviewing school building Mr Ellis said cheapness and nastiness were nearly always linked together in the public mind, but “this is not true of school buildings.” Mr Ellis claimed the new schools were the answer to the problem—“ Otherwise we will drift back into a sea of prefabricated rooms. “Increasing school populations between 1946 and 1950 were met by prefabricated classrooms. In 1950, 519 classrooms were erected, and almost half of them—47 per cent.—were temporary accommodation.

“In 1950 the department introduced a Dominion basic plan—incorporating building plans of ail education boards—and increased school building, so that in 1953 the number of classrooms in 1949 had been doubled, and the temporary rooms brought back to 30 per cent, on the total.’’ In recent years the percentage of new permanent rooms had improved further. Pupils were gradually being taken from their - “straight jackets” and larger, more practical classrooms were being erected. “The average new classroom space is now about 800 square feet compared with the 500 square feet of many earlier classrooms. We still have too fnany prefabricated classrooms, but we have cut them down to reasonable proportions.”

Mr Ellis pointed out obsolescence was always a problem for the department. A great number of old classrooms had to, be replaced. Of the country’s schools 3.6 per cent, were put up before 1885 and 8.5 per cent, before 1900.