CROWDED SCHOOL CLASSES

Evening Star, Issue 17311, 26 March 1920, Page 2

CROWDED SCHOOL CLASSES

NEW MINISTER'S INTENTIONS. WILL ACT~AT ONCE. The new Minister of Education, the Hon. Mr Parr, stated yesterday, that he intends' to take- up as his first task the overcrowding problem in schools. He has. already had something to say about the conditions in his own city of Auckland, and he has spent some time in acquiring personal knowledge of conditions in Wellington, where the state, of things is considered to be almost as bad as in Auckland. Fortunately the very worst overcrowding is confined to these two cities. In _ Christchurch the evil is not very serious, and in Dunedin it hardly exists at all. Mr Parr feels that his first important duty is to see that the overcrowding is t'lecked by the erection, as speedily as possible, of suitable school buildings. After Easter, by which time he should have been sworn- in as Minister, he intends to visit Christchurch and Dunedin to see what is the condition of the schools in those cities in respect to this evil of overcrowding. " I consider this shonld be my first duty," said Mr Parr. " I want to see that conditions in every school are made healthful. It is no use to provide the best system of education for children if at the,same time we house them in schools under crowded conditions, and so undo all the good work of the physical training we are at such pains to provide for them." POSITION IN, DUNEDIN. Mr J. Wallace, chairman, of the Otago Education Board, states that there is undoubted overcrowding in a few Dunedin schools—Forbury and N.E. Valley, for example—and probably in some country schools.