HON. H. ATMORE

Waikato Times, Volume 105, Issue 17742, 20 June 1929, Page 9

HON. H. ATMORE

RETURNS FROM HIS TOUR.

COUNTRY CHILDREN’S CLAIMS

TO RECEIVE FULL CONSIDERATION

(Special to Times.)

WELLINGTON, Wednesday. In a Cabinet, which as a whole is showing a great deal of acthit), ie Hon. H. Atmore certainly is not the least conspicuous. The Minister of Education returned yesterday from s final tour of inspection before the meeting of Parliament, having traversed the Dominion from end to end ana visited every school within the reach of rapid transport. He still has on his list a number of schools he will visit immediately after the session and ascertain at first hand their needs, today he could spare time only to make a passing allusion to the requirements of the country schools. These, he declared, were the most pressing problems of the system. Children in the country were entitled to at least as good an education as could be afforded to those in the towns, and the business of his department was to see they got it. Consolidation —the substitution of a fully-equipped school for two or three or more partially-equipped schools —was the only means by which this end could be achieved. CRITICISED AT AUCKLAND. SERIOUS DISABILITY CAUSED. AUCKLAND, Wednesday. Hon. H. Atmore, Minister of Education, came in for severe criticism at to-day’s meeting of the Education Board. The chairman took exception to the manner in which a conference had been arranged at Silverstream, and wanted it laid down very clearly that the board came next to the Minister, and no Cabinet Minister, mayor or director came before the chairman of the board in bis own particular district. Another point at issue is the appointment of the vice-principal of the Training College. “The board,” said the chairman, “at a meeting recommended a most suitable candidate, and asked in March for the Minister’s approval. Up to now nothing has been done. It would almost appear that the Minister wanted a certain individual appointed whom the Board of Advice did not think could he considered. I have been endeavouring to point out the very unfair posi-ion in which the department is placing the principal of the Training College in asking him to do two men’s work for three months.”

The chairman continued that Mr Atmore had promised to attend to the matter on his return to Wellington, but he had come and gone and nothing had been done. Before the meeting closed a resolution was carried that the Minister be written to, pointing out that his action in withholding approval of the board’s recommendation to the vice-principal-ship was causing serious disability to the working of the Training College, and that he be urged to make his decision at once.