FURTHER PROTESTS

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1048, 12 August 1930, Page 10

FURTHER PROTESTS

SCHOOL COMMITTEES ON EDUCATION CHANGES LOSS OF PUBLIC INTEREST Strong exception was taken at the jneeting of the Richmond Road School Committee last evening to the changes in administration proposed by section 2 of part 1 of the education report now before Parliament. The chairjnan, Mr. F. B. Watts, presided. Mr. Watts pointed out that the proposals, if adopted, would mean tho entire loss of personal touch with those responsible for the administration of school affairs. Tho adoption of the proposals would result in great loss to individual schools in the assistance of committees and householders now afforded for obtaining equipment, playing material and other facilities. Mr. R. Ferner said that in many States in the United States of America wonderful progress had been made in stimulating public interest in education by decentralising control rather than centralising it. The meeting passed the following resolution: “That this committee is of the opinion that while the first part of the recess committee’s report is highly commendable the second part dealing with administration is not in the best interests of education in New Zealand and that it is felt that the education board as at present constituted functions to advantage and that by the centralisation of their powers the local interest of school committees and householders would be lost,” PON SON BY COMMITTEE

The Ponsonby District Schools Committee also passed a resolution on this question. A copy is to be forwarded to the Prime Minister, the Minister of Education, the Leader of the Opposition, the Leader of the Labour Party and the member for the district. The resolution reads as follows: “The Ponsonby District Schools Committee, having control of four large schools in the Auckland district, after carefully considering the educational reorganisation in New Zealand, as suggested by the report of the Education Committee, views with alarm and strongly protests against any new legislation being introduced, whereby education administration will be centralised in Wellington. It is the opinion of this committee that any attempt to interfere with local administration, by decreasing rather than increasing the powers now held by education boards, the members of which are elected by the committees, will be a retrograde step. Such a policy will not only deprive the committees from receiving that sympathy and prompt consideration to the local requirements which this committee is now receiving from tho Auckland Education Board, but it will very detrimentally affect all local interest and enterprise in the cause of education by denying to the people their recognised right of selecting by the democratic method of election those whom they wish to administer the educational affairs of the country.”