FILMS IN SCHOOLS

Grey River Argus, 19 May 1938, Page 9

FILMS IN SCHOOLS

Rust, the German Minister of Education, set up in 1934 .the National Education Films Board in order to “equip with sub-standard film apparatus all German schools, including technical and high schools.” Such a central Board is naturally of great importance. The “Volkischer Beobachter” writes triumphantly that up .till now 15,500,000 meteres of films 'have been supplied t 0 schools. This is all written as though such an achievement were absoultely unique in the world and could only be attained under a Nationalist Socialist regime. ■'

. The German Film Centre was set up in 1926, and as far back as 1928, the Berlin municipality’s education department possessed 7,000 educational films and its budget provided a sum of 100,000 marks for this purpose. According to the “Volkischer Beobalcher,” only 178 educational films have been produced since 1934 for general schools and 38 for technical schools. Among the titles listed are a number of films produced before 1933, and tne great achievement of the Nazis therefore seems to consist in having made prints from the negatives For financing this undertaking every school child pays 80 pfennigs per annum and every student 2 marks per annum, from which the yield covers the largest part of the expenditure. As there is a total of about nine million pupils and students in Germany, the total sum is quite a considerable amount.

Other countries believe that the cost of education, especially elementary education should be a charge on the State.

The “Volkischer Beobachter” further points out that, nearly every third school now possesses sub-stand-ard film equipment. But Czechoslovakia and Russia are more advanced. In Czechosolovakia, practically every school now has its sub-standard film equipment. Efforts are being made to provide projectors for every class and to organise the constant distribution of new educational films to schools. In Russia, four thousand schools already have complete cinema equipment of their own.