IMPROVEMENTS AT SCHOOLS

Hawera Star, Volume LIII, 10 March 1934, Page 5

IMPROVEMENTS AT SCHOOLS

USE OF RELIEF LABOUR. POSITION OF COMMITTEES. A statement that thousands of pounds worth of improvements to school grounds would have been in vain unless maintenance work could be carried out by relief labour was made by a member of 'tne deputation which waited on the (Minister of Lands, the Hon. E. A. Ransom, at Patea yesterday to place before him the position of’school committees following the recent .statement that relief workers would not be available to school committees, on account of the board’s policy of not allowing the men to be engaged on maintenance work. Mr •A. T. Christensen said that in Patea there were large grounds to be maintained, and the board’s new policy •created some apprehension. If the school committees in the town and district had to pay for the work they would have to beg for funds from the public, as the cost could not be met out of capitation funds, which were insufficient for the .maintenance of the school proper. It was considered a hardship even when unemployed were available to do the work.

Mr E. F. Hemingway, chairman of the Wanganui Education Board, sai'd an enormous amount of work had been done by school committees through the aid of unemployed labour. Barren wastes had been turned into beautiful gardens, but the maintenance of the grounds could not be met out of capitation funds. If unemployed labour was not available to the committees then thousands of pounds worth of work would have’been in vain.

The matter was really one outside of the Department, but he would bring the position before the Minister of Employment., said the Minister. The idea was that unemployed should not be used to do work that other men had done. It was recognised that the improvement of school grounds was of national value, but it would bo very unwise for school committees to establish gardens and grounds that they could not maintain without the permanent use of unemployed labour.