THE CONSOLIDATION OF SCHOOLS.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVI, Issue 21324, 19 April 1939, Page 6

THE CONSOLIDATION OF SCHOOLS.

School consolidation, essentially in the interests of children attending smaller and inadequately staffed schools, has become such a welcome feature of educational progress in New Zealand that the revelation coming from the Reefton district is certain to raise the issue of capacity of the rank and file of parents to make decisions on educational policy. The dispute involving a school only a mile and one-half from Reefton immediately prompts one or two questions. For instance, is there any explanation of a departure from the statutory provisions insisting that there shall be a minimum distance of three miles between schools. In a country like New Zealand, where thousands of children have been accustomed for years to walk many miles to school each day, the retention of a dilapidated school within a short distance of an up-to-date and well-staffed district high school would seem to suggest that factors other than the primary education of the children themselves, have entered into the controversy. The Minister of Education who has faithfully discharged the pledge given early in his Cabinet career, that he would not force consolidation upon any group of unwilling parents, should now be able to discuss a serious weakness in the practice followed in primary school districts in which the consolidation has become more or less a burning question. In the Reefton district the voice of the people, as expressed in the ballot taken, reveals an almost unanimous vote in opposition to consolidation, in spite of the insistence on the part of the educational authorities that substantial advantages would accrue from consolidation in preference to erecting a new building to replace an old and unsuitable school within easy reach of a larger educational institution of the district high school type which have yielded such excellent educational results in New Zealand. Reports from the West Coast do not disclose the nature of the opposition to consolidaton. Experience has shown, however, that while invariably there are no difficulties surrounding the establishment of schools, particularly in country districts, the most violent opposition is often raised to the closing of the smaller schools, particularly those less important educational institutions which have become the social centre of a country community. Nevertheless while it is conceded that nothing should be done to hamper the development of education in country districts, parents and education authorities should regard as paramount the interests of the children in deciding the school organisation best fitted for town and country schools.