IS COST JUSTIFIED?

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 36, 11 August 1927, Page 11

IS COST JUSTIFIED?

SCHOOL HOSTELS AND POLITI-

CAL CONTROL

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—ln Saturday's issue your correspondent "Watchdog" gave very interesting information regarding the cost of a number of school hostels, and urged the importance of the return asked for by the Hon. M. Cohen giving details of the financial position of each. Such a return will oertainly be valuable; for the whole facts should be known in ordor that future policy may' be directed to avoid past mistakes. In this connection one point should be In3.de clear, namely, that, as far as actual cost to the Government is concerned, there is no paving whatever to the national funds when a school authority is allowed to erect a hostel by mortgaging its revenue from endowments. For the effect of this progees is to lessen its income from endowments by the amount of the interest OB the mortgage, and prePieely the same amount has to be made lip by the Government jn its annual grant to the board; so that as far as the cost to the country is concerned the Government might just as well, or even better, have raised the loan itself and handed it over to the sclippl authorities for the building. "Watchdog" asks the question, and it is to bq hoped that it will bo pressed, "whether those schools that have 110 hotels have had their claims so favourably considered." Take the ca.so of Wangamii. Here the Technical College i.s tho only institution in a large district that provdas public post-primary education for boys; and, judging by athletic and scholastic results, it is one of the best schools in New Zealand. For a dozen years or so it lias had a hostel, originally started as a private venture by thfi tlien director, but latterly, when thoroughly established and showing an annual profit, it has been taken over by the Tjoaid. The numbers in residence have of late years steadily been in the neighbourhood of fifty, and the character of the present accomniodatiou may be guessed from the fact that /the Department pays, for it the princely rental of £60. Again and pgairs the Government have been asked to do in Wanganui what they have done all over tlje eounta/wfor example, at Whangavei, Hawera, Feilding, Pslmerston, Napier, Wellington, Wa-nganui had a iiiucli stronger- claim than some of these where it Witts quite problematical whether there would be. an adequate demand. Again and again their hopes have been raised by Sir James Parr, and even the present Minister of Education, but Cabinet has remained adamant. Why? The man in the street will say "Spoils to the victors —Wanganui does not return to Parliament a member of the right colour." Is he wrong?

Iti your Friday's issue the Hon. X, A. Wright was reported to have told tho technical conference "it'was nonsense to complain of the domination of education by politicians. If you want to put education outside political control you must work for it." Quite so; and the first objective is to get the public to understand that education is actually under political control and that grants we made not to meet educational needs but in consequence of political pull. Take, for example, the recent expenditure on additions to the medical school in Dunedin. The original cost of this work was to be £75,000, but nearly £40,000 extra has beou wangled out ot the trovernment just as some thousands more will be wangled every year tor extra upkeep; And this colossal ex. penditure has been incurred in order to teach anatomy and physiology to eighty student,,! A distinguished surgeon has said that no medical school in Great .Britain makes suoh lavish provision as f'*'..• eh w enoush to meet the needs ot tlvta century, . May I suggest to "Watchdog" that he investigate the distribution of educational expenditure in recent years among the chief centres and ccc how far the fortunate localities are those which possess dominating influence in the Cabinet. It is surely urgent that in a matter of such vital importance a« education the distribution pf the money that the country can afford for capital expenditure should bo removed entirely from political control and placed in the hands of a board of experts independent of popular vote—l am, etc.,

SCRUTATOR