EDUCATION FACILITIES

Waikato Times, Volume 124, Issue 20820, 2 June 1939, Page 6

EDUCATION FACILITIES

Appeals to the Minister of Education by a deputation from the Hamilton High School Board of Governors have at least resulted in a promise that more information than has in the past been forthcoming will be made available on the scheme for the comprehensive reorganisation of Hamilton’s education facilities. The schema involves the building of the new Hamilton West primary school, the establishment of the present High School as a school for girls, the building of a new boys’ school in Hamilton East and the conversion of the present Technical College into an intermediate school. The local authorities have been able to make little progress beyond the beginning of the primary school project, and have had difficulty in securing information from the department. In the meantime gross overcrowding and a general lack of facilities have been retarding educational progress in the town. The Minister recognised before the deputation the urgent need of additional accommodation but said he was not sure whether it would be advisable to erect temporary buildings on the present High School site or to build some class-rooms at the Hamilton East site as the beginning of the new secondary school for boys. There is another way to meet the immediate need—by the erection of further permanent buildings at the High School which will certainly be required when that institution becomes a girls’ college. The suggestion that class-rooms might be erected on the Hamilton East site as the nucleus of the new boys’ school is unlikely to receive serious consideration for several reasons. The two sites are from two to three miles apart, and the frequent interchanging of class-rooms, pupils, teachers and equipment required in modern teaching would be almost impossible. Again, if a few class-rooms are erected there is a danger of the school remaining in that undeveloped state indefinitely, and the remedy would be worse than the complaint. The building of the Hamilton West primary school, for which tenders have been called, is the first step in a reorganisation that calls for the urgent attention which the Board of Governors has constantly been asking the Minister to take.