Northland Education Board

Northern Advocate, 11 July 1938, Page 4

Northland Education Board

THE Whangarei District Combined School Committees’ Association has issued a circular letter asking all school _ committees in Northland to support the Minister of Education in his efforts to have this province constituted a separate Education Board district.

The establishment of a separate education district here is one of the objectives aimed at by the promoters of the movement to secure for Northland separate status and a distinctive identity of its own. Apart altogether from this, however, the people within the limits of this education district exceed 65,000 in number. They have geographical rights of their own, as well as facility to manage and administer their own education services. There are upwards of 200 schools in the area. Four existing boards are each administering fewer schools than Northland possesses. These are: Hawke’s Bay, 193; Taranaki, 170; Nelson, 133; Southland, 182. Wanganui has 218, while Otago and Wellington are limited to 245 each.

Comparatively speaking, therefore, Northland is just as much entitled to administer its own educational affairs as are the districts mentioned above. It is stated that a majority of the school committees in Northland have already voted in favour of the inclusion of their areas in a separate education district. It is only natural that they should have done it; it would have been unnatural had they not shown a desire‘to govern themselves educationally. But the matter does not end with the casting of a vote. Much work has to be done yet. The people must show that they are behind the Hon. Peter Fraser and that they want to administer their own affairs. They must write or speak to the Minister, urging him to bring about this much desired change in the administration of their educational affairs. It is to be hoped that school committees will support the Combined Schools Committees’ Association in the manner suggested.