Want of School Accommodation.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 4371, 9 February 1909, Page 2

Want of School Accommodation.

EXTRAORDINARY CONGESTION AT WAIHI.

Pending the completion of the new South- School building, the Central School at Waihi is placed in the very awkward position of b ing under orders to lvfu-e admission of present applioants. At a meeting of th« Waihi School Committee last Friday evening’s deputa 1i ms were present to protest against the action of the Auckland Board of Education in laying upon the local committee such an inconvenient embargo. The following report from Mr A. H. Benge (headmaster) was published in the Waihi Daily Telegraph last Saturday : “ The school was re-opened on Monday, February Ist Fifty-two children applied for admission Although there is ■ room for seventy pupils in the school the Board refused to grant permission for any children to be admitted. The number now at the school is the same as in the year 1901. The grade of the school must of course be reduced, and we cannot expect to retain teachers who can do better elsewhere. The policy being pursued is incomprehensible. I regret to [report that Miss Gibson, teacher in charge of the IY. Standard is at present in the Thames Hospital suffering from enteric fever.”

There were personal complaints from parents who came to lay their grievances before the Committee. One gentleman stated that his boy who had been absent from school, owingtoj n accident, was refused admission upon his return. Another gentleman, recently arrived in the colony, said that if his three boys were still refused admission to the District High School he should have to send them to Auckland, but he should write home to England and give an account of New Zealand educational methods.

The Mayor of Waihi (Mr J. C. Newth) who bad been asked to attend the meeting as a deputation, said he intended to prosecute if his child weremot admitted, making his own case a test case.