SCHOOLS AND ELECTIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18347, 13 March 1923, Page 6

SCHOOLS AND ELECTIONS.

Polls will be taken to-day in a number of districts for the election of licensing committees. In view of past experience, and the small number of districts in which there are contests. on the present occasion, it is idle to pretend that the election excites much public interest. That • is unfortunate, for licensing committees have important functions, and might be made the instruments of substantial reforms. There is, however, one aspect of the arrange- ' merits for these elections which demands attention. As the law has ; stood for many years, any primary ' school may be appointed a polling , place, to be surrendered tc the re- ■ turning officer from 4 p.m. on the i day before the poll until 10 p.m. on t the day of the poll. In the list of | polling places gazetted there were ( no fewer than 144 schools in the i Auckland Education District, with rolls comprising 9476 children and ' staffs comprising 329 teachers. In | some cases, probably no other con- i venient place was available, but it i is obvious that the department's j officers do not interpret the provi- , sions of the law with discretion. f For instance, the list for the Auckland City district includes the Grafton school, with 659 children, and the Newmarket school, with 531 ( children. In the Hamilton district, ( the department requisitioned 12 , schools, three of which, at Claude- t lands, Frankton, and Whitiora, are l attended by over 1200 children, i Exactly similar instances occur r throughout the list, which includes £ many of the largest schools in the 1 Dominion, while in some cases the j department.appears to have looked s for schools first, and accepted other £ premises only when no school was j available. The official excuse is, of course, that by using schools the de- j partment avoids the expense of i hiring halls or other private x pre- j mises. The obvious objection is that this economy is effected at the | j very serious cost of a day loss of < tuition for thousands of children and ' the waste of a day's services of hundreds of teachers. Protests have c j been made by committees to educa- i 1 tion boards, conveyed by them to ' the Education Department, and l passed on by the latter to the In- a ternal Affairs Department. Yet the * abuse of the law is allowed to con- 11 tinue. When no other provision is j possible, it may be necessary to turn f children out of school for the con- I venience of a score of electors, but 8 it is manifestly improper to do so f when no such necessity exists. 1