ACCIDENTS TO SCHOOL CHILDREN

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 15, 12 October 1927, Page 10

ACCIDENTS TO SCHOOL CHILDREN

The Wellington School Committees’., Association has raised an important question in the matter of the insurance of school children against accident. Children attending school are liable to all sorts of accidents, not only when going to and from school, but during school hours. The question of liability in the latter case has arisen on more than one occasion.

As the result of a playground accident in a southern school, the New Zealand Educational Institute and the Education Department between them had to foot the bill of costs. The institute in consequence has had to advise its members against employing children on errands or school duties in which accidents involving the liability of a teacher might arise. Since the attendance of children at school is compulsory, it has been suggested that the mandatory authority, to some extent at least, is responsible for their well-being. It has been held by some educationists that a teacher is responsible, from a disciplinary point of view, for the conduct of a child while going to and from school. If that is the case—it is an extreme view—he is, in a sense, responsible for his safety. Teachers in charge of country schools will no doubt testify that there are many duties which fall to the lot of their pupils which may not be altogether free from the risk of accident. In all schools, moreover, there is always the liability of accident arising from, games in the playground. The question of insuring against liability has engaged the attention of education boards from time to time, but thus far no suggestion of a tangible kind has been presented. It is obviously inequitable that the teacher in charge of the school should be held personally accountable —as was the case in a recent incident in the south—for accidents to school children in the playground. Yet that appears to be the position under the law as it at present stands.