FREE SCHOOL BOOKS

Observer, Volume XXIX, Issue 42, 3 July 1909, Page 2

FREE SCHOOL BOOKS

The Education Board's Blunder

IN spite of the desperate efforts made by Mr C. J. Parr, Chairman of the Board of Education, to explain the attitude of the Board with regard to the question of free school books, it certainly seems as if parents have good reason to look askance at that attitude. It will be remembered that the Board failed to make application for the Government grant that was supposed to cover the cost of providing books for the use of certain classes, thereby relieving parents of the necessity of paying for these books. Mr Parr explained the reason for the Board's apparent apathy by publicly stating that the grant was not sufficient to cover the cost of all the books. This assertion was promptly questioned by the Minister for Education, and, seeing that the grant is administered on a per capita basis, it should have been sufficient.

Assuming, however, that Mr Parr is right and Mr Fowlds wrong, this doesn't absolve the Board from blame. If the grant was not sufficient to cover the co-it of all the books, it may be taken for granted that it would pay for a good many of them. We are

well aware that the stipulation made by the Department is that all books must be supplied free to the classes benefiting by the grant. It was argued by Mr Parr that, since the grant was not adequate to cover the cost of all the books, therefore the Board was not in a position to comply with that stipulation. With all due respect for Mr Parr's superior knowledge, we fail to recognise the validity of that excuse. It is reasonable to surmise that the grant would provide for the cost of the majority of the books, and it probably wouldn't have bankrupted the Board to pay the balance. Ealf a loaf is better than no bread, and the Board would have been well advised to accept that half loaf.

Id the coarse of his remarks, Mr Parr pointed oat that the Otago Education Board had also failed to pot in an application for the grant. Fatting aside the fact that two wrongs do not, under any circumstances, make a right, it is a significant fact that the majority of the members of the Otago Board, as is the case with the Auckland body, are gentlemen who have strong leanings to the Opposition. The fact ia significant, to say the least of it. It is surely within the bounds of possibility that both of these Boards, on the principle that no good thing could issue from the Government camp, came to the conclusion that on all accounts it was undesirable to apply for the grant. Whether the parents of the children who were to receive the free books are of the same w.ay of thinking is another matter. '<&.nd, anyway, their opinion on the subject doesn't count. The Board of Education is the supreme and infallible arbiter.

The strong Opposition element that is present on the local Board is the result of the undemocratic system of electing these bodies. Instead of being elected by the votes of the people direct ; they are cbosen by the various school committees. On a proportionate basis, also, the existing system is faulty. To illustrate this, we may instance the case of one of the Auckland city committees, which has three schools under its control, the number of pupils being approximately 2000. There are nine members on this committee. By way of contrast, we would quote the case of a certain country school in the Auckland district. Here the pupils number about forty, and there are seven members on the committee. Therefore, the committee that has control over 2000 pupils has only two more votes than the one that has jurisdiction over only about 40 This is grotesquely unjust, but it is only one instance of the absurdity of a system that prevails throughout the whole Dominion. It is owing to this system that such a strong Opposition leaning is observable in our local Board. The country school committees are mostly composed of farmers, who in most cases throughout this province are Oppositionists. Were the Board elected by the votes of the people, the personnel of the Board would probably undergo a quick and radical change.

Unfortunately, this is not the only case in which the system of electing public bodies is based upon a principle that is totally opposed to all the principles of democracy. In the selecting of members of our Harbour Boards and our Hospital and Charitable Aid Board, the same irritating and absurd system exists. The voting power is placed in the hands of a select few, and appointments are made on the direct nomination of the Government or of some public body. That such a condition of affairs is permitted to exist in a country that prides itself upon its advanced and democratic legislation is a standing scandal. These are cases where it is certainly desirable that the one man one-vote principle should apply. Local bodies of this nature handle large sums of public money, and the public has a right to say whom it considers to be the most suitable people to have the disposal of that money in their bands. Until the franchise is altered, and placed upon a truly democratic basis, control by local public bodies will never afford satisfaction. This is a matter upon which speedy legislation is urgently needed.