Civil defence in schools proposed

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32460, 21 November 1970, Page 9

Civil defence in schools proposed

There were many aspects of civil defence training which could and should he taught in schools, said the Director of Civil Defence (Major-General R. B. Dawson) addressing a civil defence controllers conference at Lincoln College.

General Dawson said that the ideal would be to have teacher training in civil defence introduced at teachers’ college before or in conjunction with some scheme in schools. At present civil defence was not in a position to take on Dominion-wide coverage but this was not to say that support on a small scale could not be given in places, he said. Some schools taught aspects of civil defence very thoroughly already. This was bom out at the conference yesterday with a description of the way Ashburton had made youth and

civil defence a community project. The principal of Ashburton College (Mr R. O. McDowell), said that the experiment in civil defence training at the college had been very worth while even if it had done nothing more than make many aware of the potentialities of civil defence.

The Regional Commissioner for Civil Defence in the South Island (Brigadier J. T. Burrows) described the Ashburton scheme, which will soon include boys, as one of the most interesting community projects he had heard of.

Commenting later on General Dawson’s proposal of seeing civil defence training in schools, the Mayor of Christchurch (Mr A. R. Guthrey), who was unable to attend the conference, said he intended to call a meeting early in the new year of school authorities and local Education Department officials to discuss the possibility of instituting a properly organised civil defence Scheme in city secondary schools in place of military cadet training.