SCHEME 13 MEN

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 220, 17 August 1939, Page 16

SCHEME 13 MEN

EMPLOYMENT AT SCHOOLS. CHANGE IN ADMINISTRATION. Changes in the adn/nistration of the scheme No. 1,3 for the relief of unemployment were indicated at a meeting of the Wanganui Education Board, yesterday, when a letter was received from tiie Education Department to the effect that scheme No. 13 was to cease as from September 2, and the men thereon employed in the maintenance or improvement of school grounds would be transferred to the control of the hoard, a grant being made tho board to cover the cost involved. Comment was made by Mr I. W. Mudford that in Foxton, since the depression and bad times .for the flax industry, there had boon about 200 men employed through the Borough Council and another 50 by tho Foxton Harbour Board. Two had been taken from the borough works, where they had been engaged in virtually “chipping weeds off the streets” and employed at the school under scheme No. 13. They had boon doing excellent work, of a developmental and improvement character. Mr N. Annabel! remarked that from what ho had heard ho understood there was to be a total revision of tho whole system of unemployment relief. The. school committees had been doing splendid work in improvements to school grounds, hut in many cases this had not vet been finished. Air A. S. Coleman expressed the view that the men would still he available to schools, but would he employed under the Education Board, through tho Education Department. Tho public had thought the public works expenditure was too high, so this kind of expenditure was being spread through other departments. He thought the board would still ho able to secure labour for tho schools. The chairman (Air E. F. Hemingway) suggested that the secretary (Mr G. N. Bolton) and the architect (Air E. R. Hodge) go into the list of works requiring attention, because the department wished that applications he made only for those most urgent ones. This was adopted. The secretary said tho Education Department had this year an item of £200,000 in tho Budget for improvement works. If men were dismissed under the present scheme applications would have to he made for them To he reinstated under the new order. He asked what procedure ho would follow for requests in that regard from tho school committees. AVhnt would happion in regard to country schools which required work done, in some eases more urgently than town schools? Air P. Alunro thought that tho department would arrange lor the men to ho employed as near their homes as possible. Air Hodge pointed out that the men ■would bo employed by the hoard at standard rates of pay, and would therefore he expected to perform their lull quota of work. Air Mudford made an immediate application for the renewal of labour for the Foxton School and Colonel J. H. Whyte asked that tho same application he made in respect of work nowproceeding at the Terrace End School.