CRIPPLING CHILD’S FUTURE

Taranaki Daily News, 31 March 1934, Page 19 (Supplement)

CRIPPLING CHILD’S FUTURE

ECONOMY IN EDUCATION GRANT. HAMILTON TEACHER’S CRITICISM. By Telegraph—Press Association. Hamilton, March 27. The action of the Government in cutting education grants and allegedly failing to face obligations in connection with teachers was criticised by Mr. H. G. Hall, headmaster of the Hamilton West school, at the annual meeting of the Parents’ Association last evening. “Education is the last department on which we should economise; yet, coincident with the cutting of the education grants, there is ample money for palatial buildings of all kinds—new railway stations, new picture theatres and halls,” said. Mr. Hall. He contended that such a policy was crippling the children’s future. Under the new rationing scheme teachers were badly underpaid. Four of his own staff were receiving, after the extraction of various dues, considerably less than £6O per annum. It was particularly disheartening for these teachers, most of whom were in their early twenties, to have to give a full day’s work on less than £1 a week. He instanced an anomaly by stating that several boys in standard 6 were earning more by selling papers than were their teachers.