We, as a Committee, agree with the view expressed above, and recommend it to the Government for consideration.
(e) Department of Education
(i) Relative Functions of Public Health Nurses and Visiting Teachers.—The duties of visiting teachers were laid down quite specifically in an official circular in 1953. Senior officers of the two Departments discussed the relative functions of public health nurses and visiting teachers very fully soon after the publication of the report. The two Departments and Education Boards have drawn the attention of all visiting teachers and public health nurses to methods of avoiding overlapping and of working in co-operation. In a number of districts Child Care Committees, sponsored by Senior Inspectors of Schools, have instituted central case registers. These have been a great help in ensuring that visiting teachers and public health nurses do not deal independently with the same child and family.
A residential course at Frederic Wallis House, Lower Hutt, has been planned for visiting teachers and public health nurses in 1956.
(ii) and (iii) Additional Visiting Teachers and Type of Officer to Help in Post-Primary Schools.—Approval has been given for four additional visiting teachers—two in Auckland, one in Wellington, and one in Christchurch. Discussions have been held with representative post-primary-school principals on the kind of help they need with problem children. Rather than have visiting teachers specially attached to the post-primary service, the great majority of principals were strongly in favour of extending the functions of the Education Boards' visiting teachers to cover post-primary pupils, so that one individual could follow the members of a family through their full school career. Approval has therefore been given for this. As a further assistance to both primary and post-primary schools, three additional school psychologists have been appointed.
(iv) Housing for Teachers.—The Department has been trying to deal with this problem in two ways:
(a) By an extension of existing policy for the erection of teachers' houses. All Education Boards were consulted as to where the greatest need for additional houses lay, and, without exception, they gave highest priority to rural areas and small towns. The Government is giving consideration to an extension of policy based on this advice. In 1954, 61 houses were built for teachers; this year the number is expected to be 84.
(b) By the use of the "pool" housing scheme administered by an Inter-departmental Pool Housing Committee. Under this scheme, a proportion of all new State houses erected is set aside for letting to State employees and teachers on transfer. The Department of Education is represented on the Committee that makes the allocations and represents the needs and interests of the teachers and the schools. Most of the areas concerned are in housing settlements.
(v) Facilities for Recreation.—The use of school grounds and buildings after school hours is entirely in the hands of boards and local committees. The Department has no direct authority in the matter, but does facilitate and encourage such use. Practice varies, but in many schools very great use is made of school facilities for community purposes. The work in this respect will be made more effective by the decision taken at the beginning of 1955 to build halls in all new post-primary and intermediate schools built to the new designs, to re-introduce the £2 for £1 subsidy up to £4,000 for halls in primary schools and to give a pound-for-pound subsidy up to £4,000 on gymnasia in post-primary schools. Approval has just been given, on an experimental basis, for a subsidy on a gymnasium and cafeteria in one intermediate school in Auckland, with the express condition that it be used "to provide recreational and cultural facilities for young people who have left school".
The Committee recommends these opinions for the consideration of the Government.