BACKBLOCKS CHILDREN.

Taranaki Daily News, 31 May 1920, Page 5

BACKBLOCKS CHILDREN.

NEED FOR EDUCATION. MINISTER'S HELP SOUGHT. One of the difficulties that men on public works in the baekblocks are under is in regard .to the education of their children. The communities are only temporary, and often there are 110 schools within reach, so that the children cannot go to school at all in some parts of the country. A deputation from the New Zealand Workers' Union waited on the Minister for Education in Wellington last week to ask that in all places where there was no school within two miles .Qf tiie settlement the Department should give school facilities at the works. Mr. Parr, in reply, said that he could answer for the Department that it was most anxious to see that the children in. the out-of-the-way settlements were educated. In places where there were I'2 children or more in a workers' settlement, if the Public Works Department would help him by erecting a temporary structure fov a school, he would always be prepared to assist the Education Board to find a teacher. Often, however, the difficulty was to get suitable board for a lady teacher in these circumstances. If a teacher happened to live in the neighborhood the matter was easy. But what, asked the Minister, could the deputation promise in the way of accommodation for a teacher if sent to these baekblock works? Mr. Grayndler said that if the teacher could not get suitable board and lodging the Department might put up a temporary house, and the teacher could get board from one of the workers, The Minister said thai this might lie arranged. Tie assured the deputation that he was alive to the disabilities of backblocks dwellers. He had had some experience of the backblocks in the early days, and lie knew the conditions fairly well. The'deputation could rest assured that the Department would give attention to any reasonable application for educational facilities for children of workers in out-back districts.