NEW SCHOOLS

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 10617, 16 June 1920, Page 9

NEW SCHOOLS

MORE AND BETTER TEACHERS. IMPORTANT^STA TEMENTS BY HON.

P*B PRESS ASSOCIATION. . : FOXTON, June 15. The Hon. C. J. Parr/ Minister for Education, performed the opening cejvmony at the new school hero this oxteiv noon. Prior to the ceremony he was accorded a civic reception. Speaking at the opening of the school the Minister emphasised the fact that £700,000 worth of school buildings were either in course of construction, or else authorised by the department. About ■ worth had, however, not yet been begun by Education Hoards and this was duo to the shortage of labour/ and more especially to the severe shortage of materials. The now regulation under which only essential buildings would he permitted by the Government to be built, he hoped, would help boards in speeding-up their building programme. He desired ailj) Education Boards to liasten. os far as possible, the construction of schools. Other people should wait, but the children should not wait, and the principles of ordinamv humanity dictated that the children must bo boused comfortably for school work before anything else. Though the cast of building construction was about 110 per cent, higher to-day than in 1914, the Government, realising the needs of the children, would proceed rigorously. He proposed to summon, shortly, a conference of representatives of Education Boards to take counsel with him as to the best means of pushing on ike building programme. Perhaps a reform as necessary as building, wag that more teachers should ba obtained, the Minister said, and he proposed to do this by raising the status of the teachers. He hoped very shortly to make the teoohing profession more attractive as regards remuneration. This would attract young men who at present sought employment in other directions. Ho wanted the best of our young people to take up teaching.' Mrs Parr, wife of the Minister, un veiled a memorial to ex-pupils who fell in the war.