Equipment scheme

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32902, 28 April 1972, Page 10

Equipment scheme

(N.Z. Press Association)

ROTORUA, April 27. The Minister of Education (Mr Pickering) said today that school committees would benefit from the Government's decision to approve the payment of special grants to education boards for the maintenance of buildings and for general administration. Speaking to the New Zealand School Committees’ Federation, he said the major improvements came with the announcement of a new basic equipment scheme. “Hie scheme had previously come in for criticism because it did not provide for the cost of maintenance and the provision of replacement items,” he said. “The provision of much equipment for schools had therefore depended on the ability and willingness of parents to provide part of the necessary funds.

“A new equipment scheme corrects much of the inequality that existed,” said Mr Pickering.

“All available Government funds will now be used to bring equipment into all schools up to the new standard and maintain it, without the need for a subsidy scheme,” the Minister said.

MR A. V. BARROW

Mr Alfred Victor Barrow, who died at the Rannerdale War Veterans’ Home on Monday, was in the thick of the fighting in the air during one of the big events of the First World War.

He was in the air when the “Red Baron,” the German air ace, Manfred von Richthofen, was shot down near Amiens. The baron had been a scourge of the Allied forces and assured himself a place in aviation history. Mr Barrow was bom in England in 1886 and came to New Zealand in 1911. He went to Australia three years later and enlisted in the 3rd Infantry Battalion of the Australian Imperial Forces. He transferred to the Australian Flying Corps in 1917 and served as an observer and pilot in the 3rd Squadron in France. , Mr Barrow returned to New Zealand in 1920 and worked for Smith and. Smith, Ltd, for many years.; He was a life member of the Canterbury Officers’ Club.