SCHOOL COMMITTEES

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 10640, 13 July 1920, Page 6

SCHOOL COMMITTEES

ANNUAL CONFERENCE ADDRESS BY MINISTER .FOB EDUCATION. / Tho annual conference of the Federated School Committees’ Association of New Zealand was opened last evening. Mr A. G. Wallace (Wellington) presided. At the opening, the Minister for Education (iion. G. J. Parr) and several members of Parliament were present. The chairman said the delegates represented the schools of New Zealand, which held 171,000. children. They were assembled to discuss educational matters, and '”75 remits were on tho order paper. If education had been good enough in the past wo would not have the labour unrest which beset us to-day—if children had been taught that they must do their share of the world’s work. Mr Parr said he had been a school committeeman, and he found tho knowledge then gained of great value to him now. Ho realised to-day that in taking the office of the Minister for Education ho had taken perhaps the hardest office in the Government. There may have been neglect of education, but he did not blame the National Government for that, as in the war days the first question for settlement was whether we were to have British schools or German schools in this country. FINANCIAL AND OTHER QUESTIONS. There was no limit to what cducation could do for civilisation. Everywhere there was a demand for new and better schools. Ventilation and light, and so on, were all wrong in the schools. Wo seemed to have blundered, and now we had to remedy those blunders. Parliament had done its duty, and last session voted £750,000, and ho intended to spend it all. He could do with more money. A voice: Wo will get you more I ■" In six months £723,000 had been authorised to be spent, so it would be recognised that the authorities were pushing on .as well a$ they could. A while ago £69,000 was all that was spent in one year. He hoped everything would bo kept moving forward. Ho wanted to encourage building, al.most at any cost. We had not enough teachers. Ho did not want to encourage the pupil-teacher system, but wo wanted more, and we must train them, and give inducements to tho brightest scholars to enter the profession. He did not claim that the present system of administering education was perfect, but he did; not propose to alter it this session,' Maybe a now director coming in would bring with him new ideas on administiation. On tho subject of finance, ho said tho capitation had been increased from os 6d to 9s, about SO per cent.

Voices: It should have been more. Money has gone down! He hoped the requests for financial help would not he too heavy, and ho was going to ask school committees to present balance-sheets to prove that their grants wore inadequate. OFFICERS’ REPORT. A report presented, by the president and the secretary said: “We should like to draw your attention to the part that deals with the deputation to the Prime Minister on September 3rd, 15)19. Your president asked for a grant of £3,000,000 and the Prime Minister in reply stated that additional funds would be provided. We are pleased to say that to some extent this promise had been fulfilled, and a sum of 2i millions (spread over three years) would be raised for the purpose • now buddings, etc. It will bo the duty of the various associations to see that the proper proportion of money is spent each year, so that no, overlapping will take place. Our next step was to fiend to every member of Par. liament a copy of the resfoutions carried at the conference, although this meant a fair amount of work- wo- believe that the result justified the expense, for on September 10th the Prime Minister said a larger vote for school would bo provided. The Now Education Amendment Act was circulated at the end of September and steps were at once taken to have our views plivced before the Education Committee. Although our wants were not filled wo received a measure of success, namely an additional voOOO for committees We continued our efforts, and a further £SOOO was placed on the Supplementary Estimates. From the reports that have been made we think that committees have found that (although more money could very easily be used) the extra capitation has proved, of considerable crvicc.”

The conference will resume at 10 a.m. to-day.