RURAL EDUCATION

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 23 July 1926, Page 5

RURAL EDUCATION

CONSOLIDATION MOVEMENT.

COST OF TRANSPORT RETARDS PROGRESS. FROM OUR PARLIAMENTARY REPORTER. WELLINGTON, July 22. The consolidation of small schools is regarded by the Education Department as .a most important factor in improving- rural education ini New Zealand'. The department’s annual report shows that, only the difficulty of securing economical transport is retarding this movement. It states: “The consolidated school must, however, l>e introduced gradually. The transport problem in New Zealand is more difficult than in America; the roads are more primitive, the population more scattered, and again the Government cannot scrap useful buildings, nor can it in ,ai few years find the cost of providing new central school buildings to replace them. The policy is, therefore, to confine the consolidation scheme to places where the establishment of a new scohol or the rebuilding of an old. worn-out school can be, avoided and conveyance to a, central school over good roads provided' at a reasonable cost. At the present time there are about 100 conveyances, mostly motor bases, employed in the conveyance of children, and as the roiadls improved and the cost of transport reduced the policy as to extend the system. The department is receiving numerous unreasonable requests to pay full cost of conveyance of children to school where the distances are not great, the number of children is small, and the cost high for the service to he performed. In all such cases' the present 'allowance of Gd per pupil per day, plus half reasonable cost above that capitation, is considered all that the Government should lie called upon to .provide. The deoartment wished to do all it reasonably can to offer the fanner’s child the best educational facilities, but it cannot undertake to provide motor buses, at whatever cost, to convey to school every child whose 'home is distant over two or three miles.”