EXPENDITURE ON SCHOOLS

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29177, 11 April 1960, Page 17

EXPENDITURE ON SCHOOLS

Requests For Money Total £11.5m

(New Zealand Press Association) HAMILTON, April 10.

Requests for finance for school buildings this year totalled £ 11.5 m, said the Minister of Education (Mr Skoglund) in Hamilton. This was £4m more .than expenditure last year, which was a record. “A cut of £lm each for primary and post-primary schools has been made,” he said, “but this still leaves an expenditure of £9.5m. It is. obvious that the Government cannot go on spending more and more money on such things and at the same time consider giving relief to the taxpayer.” Discussing the size of schools. Mr Skoglund said one school he visited in Australia had 1900 pupils which he felt was too much like an institution. But in New Zealand he considered the stage was being reached where, particularly in the larger built-up areas, such as in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin and the larger provincial cities, schools would be rising every half-mile, which was uneconomic.

The situation might arise, he said, if a maximum roll of 500 was adhered to for primary schools.

It might be found later that many of these schools might be redundant. Each of these schools required five acres of valuable land which was vitally needed for housing. Mr Skoglund said he had found during his tour of New South Wales that children were being sent to certain schools on the basis of intellictual capacity. In New Zealand it was thought desirable to make the schools a cross-section of the community. Within the classrooms the division could be made regarding rapidity of learning.