SCHOOL SUBSIDIES

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20092, 22 November 1930, Page 4

SCHOOL SUBSIDIES

PLIGHT OF COMMITTEES. DEPARTMENT refuses to PAY. 1 At least two School Committees in Canterbury, Linwood avenue and T»maru Main, find themselves in an unenviable position. Having applied to the lid 11 cat ion .Department, through the Jidueation Board, for subsidies to pay for improvements to their schools, and having had them approved, they went 011 with the work. Now the Department says it is unable to tind the money to pay the subsidies. Elucidation of the position at yesterday's meeting of the Canterbury Education Board led to the Department being charged with failure to honour its promises, one member stating that the veto had apparently been placed on such grants by the Treasury. At any rate the Department is to be asked to pay. Subsidies Approvod. In March of this year, said Mr C. S. Thompson, ot the Linwood avenue Committee had nnnlied for a subsidy of £ll 'for tho erection of a bicycle shed, which had been approved in April. The committee had gone on with the work, only to be informed recently thai the subsidy would not be paid ; in other words that the Department was not going to honour its promise. Ho understood that the Education Department's approval had been over-ruled by the Treasury. The committee of the Tnnaru Main School had applied for its subsidy of some £27 for ground improvement in June and it had been approved in Sei)tember, but there also this Department had since declined to pay. These approvals had been given, explained Mr Thompson, before the decision to suspend the payment of subsidies on ail but essential works. The reason, apparently, was that funds were short and the Department could not pay, but if this was so, why was Mr Atmore 'stumping" the country telling tho people about his big reorganisation scheme which was going to cost thousands in buildings alone? With this prospect of change in the air the School Committees did not kn jw where they stood and were becoming unsettled, with the result that their work was being affected. It was tho duty of tho Board to see that primary education was not neglected in favour of secondary and technical schools. They realised that the new system was designed to provide better" secondary and technical training, but it looked as if. in the meantime, primary schools were going to suffer. He would move that the Board express its strong dissatisfaction at the failure of the Department to honour its promises nnd pay the subsidies claimed for Linwood avenue and Timnru Main School Meeting Their Accounts. One member asked what would b© tho position of those committees who had gone on with the works relying on the subsidy should they find themselves unablo to meet their accounts. ,

The chairman (Mr W. A. Banks) : The Board will have to come to the rescue, I suppose. What power have wo to force the payment ot these subsidies ?

Mr Thompson: None, except public opinion, but that is a fairly strong weapon. Mr G. W. Armitage: Schools in the country find themselves in a Bimilar plight by being denied subsidies. Funds arc short, the Department says, yet we have the Director and AssistantDirector of Education touring all over tho country, ranking inspections and reports on questions, that this Board could very wol) Htlend to without their help. l>issatisfnctioD in the terms of Mr Thompson's motion was registered. An official of the Board stated after the meeting that he did not think the Department was to blame beeaus" its decisions had been overridden by the Trensury Department. Certain items on which the nnvment of subsidies would be suspended had been snecified by the Department, but neither of these came in that category. Further, l>oth the subsiding in question had been »ipproved before that announcement was made.