RURAL DENTAL CLINICS

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1073, 10 September 1930, Page 10

RURAL DENTAL CLINICS

DEPARTMENT EXTENDING SCHOOL SERVICE FARMERS AND EDUCATION “I have to inform you that the school dental service has already been established in country districts in many parts of the Dominion, and its operations are being still further extended each year as rapdily as circumstances permit.” This is the statement of the Minister of Health, the Hon. A. J. Stallworthy, in a communication to the New Zealand Farmers’ Union, which recently urged the Government to hasten the establishment cf dental clinics to serve rural districts, and so remove disabilities under which country children were placed. Mr. Stall worthy mentioned that 547 schools had already been brought within the scope of the service. Remits forwarded by the executive of the union to the Minister of Education, the Hon. H. Atmore, dealt with several important educational subjects. The executive entered an emphatic protest against the introduction of the junior high school system, but Mr. Atmore pointed out that New Zealand was the only progressive country where the change from primary to postprimary training was made at so late an age ns 13 or 14. Mr. Atmore said, in response to one remit, that the present financial position made it impossible to grant the same travelling facilities to secondary school pupils as were granted to primary school children. Free conveyance of secondary , school children at present would have to be confined lo conveyance by rail, and not to districts where there were no train facilities. Replying to the union’s objection to “the continual change of school books,” and its request for standardisation. Mr. Atmore said that, prior to the adoption of the .present text books used in primary schools, there had been no change in the authorised list of class books for mote than 1U years. No change would bo made in the present list until the lapse of five years. The price of the books compared more than favourably with the amounts charged in Australia a-nd England.