SCHOOL PRAYERS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 143, 18 June 1937, Page 14

SCHOOL PRAYERS

ARE THEY LEGAL?

POWERS OF BOARD

ADJUSTMENT OF.

HOURS

The decision of the Wellington Education Board to alter.its bylaws and givo school committees authority to permit-tlie holding of devotional exer-.cfses-at schools each morning has given rise to misgivings as to the legality of tHo- step.

; Under'- Section 32 of the Education Act, 1914, education boards are authorised to define the hours of opening ahd closing schools. Section 49, subsection 7, of the Act states that, subject to the bylaws of the board, the schpol buildings may be used at times other than those fixed for purposes of lirimary,: secondary, or technical instruction, or■'for-continuation classes, upon'such terms as the committee may prescribe, provided that nothing in the section, or the board's bylaws, shall prevent the committee from granting, as it. deems fit, the use of the school buildings as aforesaid for the purpose of moral or religious instruction. Section- 56, subjection 4, of tlie Act, states that a school is to be kept open for at least four hours daily on five days of the'week, and the teaching is to be entirely of a secular character. j

Bylaw number 47 of the Wellington Education Board provides for five hours' daily teaching on five days of the week, except for infants, for whom four hours daily teaching are prescribed, but there is a proviso that where arrangements approved by the school committee are made for imparting religious instruction, on one day in the week the. number of hours of secular instruction may be reduced to four and a half.

It was pointed out authoritatively yesterday that when the Education J3oard's bylaw is amended, provision will have to be made for the schools to open at 0.5 a.m. If.'.. the ' present school closing hours'are. to be adhered to, and if the devotional exercises are to be in addition to the Nelson system which has 'been suggested, then the school hours will be reduced by a further five minutes on four days of the week — twenty minutes in'all.