SCHOOL RESIDENCES

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 21 February 1935, Page 2

SCHOOL RESIDENCES

“HOVELS" FOR TEACHERS

MARRIED MAN’S PROTEST

MISLED BY DESCRIPTION

A definite protest made by a teacher at Niho Niho against the state of accommodation there was supported by a member of the Taranaki Education Board yesterday. The member described some of the teachers’ residences as “hovels.” A report on teachers’ residences will be prepared for the next meeting of tjie board. “I have to inform you that 1 have arrived at Niho Niho and taken possession. of the school bach,” wrote the teacher, Mr. R. H. T. Newick. “I was not ,however, prepared for the shock which I received on inspecting the residence. It was advertised as a fourroomed residence, whereas it is only a three-roomed bach with a small sciillery. There is no bathroom, only a tin bath in a small detached washhouse. The rooms are small, the walls lined with wood being painted various coours, in a crude manner, while the chimneys, of the ‘bush’ type, are hardly in keeping with a school house. The lavatory is in an inaccessible corner of the horse paddock, with a tour-feet fence intervening. There are only two small tanks quite inadequate to meet the demands of a. family. 'There is no room for my furniture as T have sufficient for four rooms as anticipated. “From a health point of view a woman can hardly be expected to rush to and from the washhouse in all weathers to wash herself, a baby and a young child.

BOARD SECURED LOCALLY

“As a consequence of the abwve I have had to arrange for my wife and two children, one a baby, to board in Auckland until such time as the residence here is made habitable for a family, while 1 have had to procure board locally. Obviously such a state of affairs is very unsatisfactory both from a. family and a financial point of view, inasmuch as I have to pay double board expenses as well as a housp allowance equal to those who have a proper house with vonveniences.” In order that the schoolhouse be made .suitable for a married man with a family, be suggested numerous alterations, including the addition of sitting and bath-rooms to the house, painting and papering throughout, and tire addition of a 400-gallon tank and a verandah.

Another letter sought alterations to the Mangatupoto house to make it suitable for a. married man. “These teachers have years of training and then go to country schools to live in hovels,” declared Mr. J. C. Barclay. n The men in the railways are provided with decent houses. This is no inducement to take up the profession at all. Sometimes teachers must got board in most undesirable houses. One teacher once asked if be could sleep in the school porch.” The architect eonsideied the most serious incidents as PuranJ; and Wharcorjno

“I have been in the residence, and the teacher is absolutely justified in his complaint,” said Mr. T. J. Griffin. “As a young man I would not like to take that house as a residence to take a wife to. Others, such a s Inglewood, Knponga, Warea, and dozens of others are not St nil suitable for the position hold by the teacher. This teacher has ample justification for his complaints.”