Country children will suffer

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34129, 15 April 1976, Page 2

Country children will suffer

(By

JOHN BROWN)

Country children will suffer most from a Government decision to reduce the amount of travel it will allom educational psychologists, rural education advisers, and some school inspectors to make. The Minister of Education (Mr Gandar) and the Deputy Minister of Finance (Mr Gair) have made it clear that reductions in education spending are imminent. Educational psychologists will be told next week that they must reduce the field work which more than 110 educational psychologists throughout New Zealand consider to be the most important part of the service they provide for school pupils, parents, doctors, the Society for the Intellectually Handicapped. and other agencies. The only State-run residential school for backward bovs. Campbell Park School, near Duntroon, in North Otago, will be denied any substantial assistance from educational psychologists, as they would have to travel from either Timaru or Dunedin. The principal of Campbel! Park School (Mr P. Aspden) said yesterday that if such services were denied the

school, it would create major problems for the 80 pupils. It costs more than $15,000 to train an educational psychologist; and most of those employed in the South Island believe it would be “ludicrous" for the Government to restrict their work to bases in Christchurch, Dunedin, Timaru, Invercargill and Nelson. This would deny hundreds of country children the services of trained psychologists.

When the travel restrictions are implemented, all that some areas will save will be an estimated $5OOO. Nationally, this figure would amount to little more than $BO,OOO. in a total educational budget of more than s6som. The Department of Education’s psychological service has been instructed that it cannot do any social welfare work unless parents bring children to the base areas from which the service works. For the parents of many country children, this will be impossible.

The move will do little to alleviate the problems which will be caused in classes in country towns for backward children. These children must be assessed regularly by the psychologists — and it must be done in on-the-spot consultation with school teachers.