BAY OF PLENTY BEACON Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1950 SCHOOL FOR OHOPE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 15, Issue 90, 1 September 1950, Page 4

BAY OF PLENTY BEACON Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1950 SCHOOL FOR OHOPE

Throughout New Zealand, school committees are impatient with delays alleged to be caused by education boards in proceeding with new • school buildings for which financial approval has been given. In some cases, similar criticism is levelled at the Education Department. Throughout its area, from the King Country north, the Auckland Education Board is facing such criticism.

The case of the proposed school for Ohone. as stated by a contributor in today’s issue, is a case in point—a case which, from a local point of view-, is a most important one. A school could be opened at Ohope now, it has been suggested, with a roll number of about 80. But. as Whakatane grows, so will Ohope, not only as a seaside resort but as a residential suburb. It may not be unfair to say that, by the time the new school is built, it will be too small for the number of children who, by then, will require to use it. Certainly, the present education set-up for Ohope children is worse than unsatisfactory. The trouble about control of Whakatane education from' as far away as Auckland is that the importance of the matter to local people cannot be fully realised. Whakatane’s problems are among many handled bv the Auckland Education Board. Probably, they are realised only as part of a position which, applying as it does to the whole province, has little meaning to an official in any individual case. The wheels of Government grind slowly and, in this case, most inadequately.