SCHOOL BUILDINGS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20977, 14 September 1931, Page 13

SCHOOL BUILDINGS.

Sir, —Please allow me a small spac« to i reply to a correspondent of September 8 < re school buildings and signed "Small Taxpayer." Perhaps the writer is not j aware that extra money had to be found S for school buildings, owing to the dis- j astrous earthquakes in Murchison and ! Hawke's Bay, also that in the past country j schools had been neglected. As an exteacher of a country school and a parent ] 1 am very glad to see country children and : teachers are getting the consideration due j to them. As a small taxpayer and parent I say that it is not the size of the j sum of money the Minister of Education is fortunate enough to get from the j Treasury that matters, but whether the money is spent to the best advantage and whether the children are getting the right kind of education. At present this is a moot question. Your correspondent states "Mr. Stall worthy's district at Gladstone Road school, Mr. Munn's district at Mount Roskill, have just had dental clinics erected." The correct facts should be stated. The Gladstone school never has been in the Hon. A. Stallworthy's district. Part of the school is in the Roskill electorate. The boundary line runs between the infant school and the upper school and Grey Lynn and Suburbs ~re both as near as Roskill. The parents, friends and committee worked very hard for 12 months preparing for a bazaar which was held in 1930 to raise funds to build the dental clinic and for grounds fund. The clinic was opened on May 1. This school has a large roll number, well over 600 pupils, and the dental clinic I hope will prove a very great saving to the parents of those least able to afford dentists' bills, but who are quite willing to pay what they can. The correspondent evidently overlooked the fact that Gladstone school is to have two portable rooms built, and I would be very proud to think that the Minister of Health, the member for Roskill and also the member for Grey Lynn had enough backbone to insist that the children of Gladstone, Roskill or any other school of New Zealand have proper conditions to work in and, where possible, dental clinics also. Thinking people of New Zealand do not ask for "ornate buildings," but we do ask for the right education and under the right housing conditions for our children. So I say, "Hands off our education money," and may the Minister of Education see to it that he gets all the monpy he can spend in the right direction. Non-Part*.