More classrooms needed

Press, 15 July 1985, Page 2

More classrooms needed

PA Wellington About 250 extra classrooms will have to be built or modified to cope with the reduced 1:20 teacher pupil ratio in junior class sizes, says an Education Department spokesman. The rooms will be needed for the extra 500 primary teachers announced in the Budget. Two hundred teachers will start work next term with the rest set for the start of the 1986 school year. The department’s director of buildings, Mr Mai O’Byrne, said large scale building programmes probably would not be needed. It was not necessary in every case to have one classroom for just one teacher.

Some schools selected for the lower class sizes already had surplus space

available, he said. Others would be able to adapt existing rooms. Releasing pupils into smaller rooms for more individual attention would also open up space. . Some new rooms would, however, have to be built, Mr O’Byrne said. “It is very likely that about half of the additional teachers in the first two stages will be able to be accommodated without additional rooms,” he said. “The rest will have to be adapted for use or built.” Mr O’Byrne said surplus classrooms had been available since rolls started to drop. These rooms would be used. Some education boards were more fortunate than others in the number of relocatable rooms available.