SPENDING ON SCHOOLS

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30763, 29 May 1965, Page 17

SPENDING ON SCHOOLS

<Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, May 28. The Parliamentary Public Expenditure Committee wants a higher standard of school temporary accommodation than the present pre-fabricated classroom units. Reviewing expenditure on education, its third report tabled in Parliament calls for the Auckland Education Board to build and move to a school site a “double mobile classroom” to demonstrate the practicability and cost of the idea. One such structure, complete with toilets, already stands at Otara School, but was built on the site.

On economic grounds, the committee recommends that primary and secondary teachers’ colleges be run as single teachers’ institutes and that there be no segregation of training, as in Auckland. “The colleges there,” says the report, “are finding they are more inter-dependent.”

The report proposes a full investigation into the suitability of Ardmore for a teachers’ college but, without waiting for such a study, recommends that the college be closed and its students transferred to other centres. College Councils

All teachers’ colleges or groups of colleges should be administered by teachers’college councils.

The future control of teachers’ colleges is currently being reviewed by the National Advisory Council on Teacher Training, a body which the Parliamentary committee suggests be made autonomous, examining students, setting curricula and supervising academic standards.

The report also recommends that:

College principals be kept informed on the development of students for two to three years after leaving college.

A computer be considered for preparing lecture time-tables to save money and use space better. The Education Department be responsible for building new colleges. College lecture hours be extended and facilities

be available at night. Plans be made for greater rolls and the maximum roll for a college be fixed urgently. The Government build more hostels where accommodation is acutely short and consider an international design contest for multi-storey hostels.

Dealing with general administration, the committee wants any vacant classrooms to be used to allow smaller classes, if enough teachers are available, or for libraries or for assembly halls, if suitable alterations can be made.

Southern schools, says the committee, should have in-

creased grants for heating and lighting. Savings Possible

Real savings are possible if education boards conform with Government policy on buying and replacing vehicles, particularly through central purchasing. Teachers’ salary scales should be reviewed, to cut delays in payouts, reduce checking necessary by boards after the department’s computer has prepared cheques and to give teachers a clearer picture of their position. Savings could be made if there were a regular survey of school equipment, to see how it stands up to use, to isolate defects and to introduce desirable design changes or standards.

The committee says the “single school” board system of secondary administration seems expensive in terms of money, if outside secretaries are involved, or through the loss of teaching services, if a staff member acts as secretary. Special Schools Charges made to parents with children at special schools should be reviewed and made more uniform. The Child Welfare Division should prepare long-range and shortrange building programmes and institute a better stores control accounting procedure. Plans should be prepared for a new school for the intellectually handicapped, to replace that at Sunnydene, Auckland, through whose property a motorway is to be built.