NEARLY FINISHED

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 257, 27 July 1936, Page 8

NEARLY FINISHED

New Home Science Wing at Technical College

With the finishing soon of its new home science wing, which is being constructed at a cost of £17,600, the Wellington Technical College will be enabled to embark on a number of new courses of study which at present have no place in the curricula of any school in the Dominion. The building programme also includes an auditorium nearly as large as the Wellington Town Hall. This is also nearly finished at a cost of £ll,OOO. A lofty hall, it measures 108 ft. from the doorway to the proscenium and is 68ft. wide. When finished it will be the finest auditorium of any school in New Zealand.

The new wing, which is two-storeyed and will contain twelve rooms, is to be used principally by girls who have more or less finished their secondary training in either professional or home domestic work.

There is, however, to be a bakery room for boys. This will be the first of its kind attached to any technical college in New Zealand and the intention is to train students for the trade. Enrolments will be received next year of pupils desirous of learning the bakery and confectionery trade. A cookery room for girls will be ready for occupation early next term. Upstairs, provision has been made for a large nutrition laboratory for bio-chemistry and nutrition work. Airy and well-lighted, it should be admirably suited for a laboratory and, as it is nearly 60ft. long, it will be able to accommodate without congestion a large number of senior students doing ordinary practical and research work. A New Departure. Most novel of all, is a four-roomed practice flat, a complete unit, which is to be run by groups of two or three students taking a proposed new housekeeping course. The flat is to be run just as a house would be, with the students doing their own marketing, provisioning, cleaning and laundering. There is a kitchen and servery, a living room, bedroom and bathroom and the students will receive a thorough drilling in home management. It is proposed to make a short course, of say six months, available to young women about to marry and those who wish to take up housekeeping as a profession may enrol for a longer period. There is no similar course in New Zealand at present.

When not required for school gatherings, the proscenium in the assembly hall will be screened off and used as a hygiene and home-nursing room. Two other rooms are to be fitted up as sick rooms, and this department is to be run on the lines of a small hospital. Underneath the auditorium will be the laundry, where all types of this work —household as well as institu-tional-will be taught. A dryingroom is to be provided and the students will be able to do all the work within a reasonable space of time. Work on the building has been in progress for 56 weeks. The new wing is to be opened on December 8 by the Minister of Education, the Hon. P. Fraser, as part of the silver jubilee celebrations of the college.