NGATEA HIGH SCHOOL.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5178, 14 September 1927, Page 3

NGATEA HIGH SCHOOL.

ACCOMMODATION DEFICIENT.

BUILDING POLICY

Resolutions protesting against the rumoured reduction in powers or the abolition of education boards', even though the move may result in scnool committees being given .wider powers, continue to be passed by country school committees which chafe under the restrictions and short-sighted policy of the Department of Education.

Instances of the shortsightedness of the department are available throughout the country districts in the matter of the accommodation provided at schools where the number of pupils is steadily increasing. Authority by the department for the erection of additional class-rooms consistently lags behind the demand, and recommendations by school committees, endorsed by education boards, that provision ' be made for future requirements when planning additions are consistently ignored.

At the Ngatea District High School the present roll number is 178 and there |si accommodation for 120 at the department’s rate of 12 square feet per pupil. The result is that as classes cannot be divided into different class-rooms the boys’ shelter-shed, Which is open to the weather on one side, has to be used for the accommo* dation of two of the primary school classes, and the old school building, which isi supposed, to be a sheltershed, has to be used by the high school. The room intended for the high school was built largely by public subscription as a district war memorial.

Additions to the school are now being carried out, but the crowding will not be relieved, and the girls’ sheltershed will have to accommodate 33 primary school pupils though its floor space is barely sufficient for 21. It is known that there are 29 children in the district who will have to be admitted in the next few months;, and allowing for the withdrawals at the end of the year of the present sixth standard —though many of them may continue at the secondary department, and there are bound to be pupils from the other schools of the district—there will be a roll-number well over 200, apd accommodation for only 178. The shelter-shed will still have to be used, for the Education Board cannot secure authority from the department for further additions.