SCHOOL COMMITTEES’ CAPITATION.

Waipa Post, Volume 39, Issue 3088, 12 December 1929, Page 5

SCHOOL COMMITTEES’ CAPITATION.

Sir, —May I, through your paper, put in a protest at the action of the Government in refusing to increase the miserable pittance that is doled out to school committees to pay for the cleaning of schools, purchase of fuel, and to cover a part of incidental expenses. The facts were placed before the Prime Minister and the Minister of Education by a recent deputation. After a courteous reception and a patient hearing the Prime Minister said he was surprised to hear that school committees were in many cases compelled to go begging money from parents to pay for school cleaning and to buy fuel in winter. He would do all possible for the committees, but his difficulty was in providing money for the country’s needs. He was going over the Estimates, not for the purpose of increasing them but for cutting them down. In this case, however, he saw the need for an additional grant and would do all he could in the Supplementary Estimates. After weeks of patient waiting the Supplementary Estimates were published, and we were sadly disappointed to find that not one penny was granted for school committees. Inquiring of the Minister of Education we were informed that the reason was “simply that the Government didn’t have the money. They would try and do something at the end of the financial year.” It is said you can’t get blood out of a stone, but you can get money out of a moneyless Government if you do not want it for primary school children. Private members of Parliament got a decent Christmas present out of the empty box, and when Scots College, in Wellington, came on the market the Education Department promtply produced £38,000 to pay for something they do not really need, and that certainly was not on any Estimates. They have no trouble in providing 50s per head for secondary schools’ incidental expenses. They can find any sum required for addition to agricultural colleges, but they will not find the money required to replace an infant school that was described years ago by a member of the Education Board as “ Not fit to stable cattle in.” There is not one sixpence to add to the miserable 7s per head that has sufficed the larger primary schools for cleaning and all incidental expenses. Now, there is a reason for these things. We people of New Zealand are proud of our secondary schools, Influential people are interested in them, and 50s per head is little enough to spend on them. We simply can’t be proud of our primary schools, so why worry whether they get seven shillings or sevenpence ? The authorities can afford to ignore any agitation for better conditions in primary schools, for they are well aware of the appalling apathy of the people who send their children there. So once again the school committees will follow the stone they had I’olled almost to the summit, to the bottom of and (perhaps) try yet are the parent's goirjg —I am, etc.>