Call for schools to teach swimming

Hope to get pools back in Manawatu schools

LEILANI HATCH/Fairfax NZ

WATER BABIES: Water Safety New Zealand is pushing to get more children like Elise d'Arbois, 5, taught water skills at school. Elise is pictured here at the Lido Aquatic Centre in Palmerston North.

Water Safety New Zealand is hoping to get pools back in Manawatu schools because of fears a lack of water education will lead to a further increase in drownings.

A quarter of primary school students in New Zealand are unable to swim 25m or keep afloat, according to Water Safety New Zealand, and the organisation's chief executive Matt Claridge said something needed to be done to reintroduce swimming back into the school curriculum.

He said the organisation was in the final stages of developing a concept to help maintain and develop school pools in New Zealand regions. Mr Claridge said his priority was getting children aged five-10 proper water safety education, and reinstating school pools would mean they would have more time in the water.

In a new concept being developed by the organisation, Mr Claridge said it hoped to create 10 new pools each year for the next five years, and re-establish more than 20 pools – they had been closed due to lack of funding – annually over five years.

But he said sport organisations, the Government and councils would need to get on board to help the initiative.

Statistics showed that of the 115 schools in Manawatu, 79 had pools.

There were 36 without pools, or had them but they were no longer in use.

Many pools have had to be closed because of a lack of maintenance and operational funding.

The pool at Manchester Street School in Feilding was transformed into a plant nursery in 2002, after it could not afford to repair it.

Principal Rex Wheeler said the pool was closed in 2001 when it became too expensive to keep it running.

"It was closed because it was leaking quite incredibly and had a crack in the bottom and it also needed a complete new filtration system, and the cost at that stage the school could not manage," Mr Wheeler said.

"We also were only using it for some juniors as our seniors were still using the Makino Pool, which is 100 metres or so down the road."

Other schools having to use community pools include Roslyn, Takaro, Kairanga, Terrace End, Parkland and Awapuni.

Mr Claridge said if school pools keep shutting down the results would be seen in the drowning toll in 10 years' time.

"Our biggest priority is five to 10 year olds," he said. "It's the most fundamental time to learn water skills. It's the first [water] skills these children learn"

He said drowning numbers were the highest in males over 18 years old.

"They don't have the skills and the knowledge to not do a certain activity or know the skills to get out of trouble. This comes from the fact that there wasn't enough water safety skill taught when they were younger."

In the past five years, only two children under the age of two have drowned in Manawatu, and no primary or secondary school children have been lost to the water.

According to statistics from the Ministry of Education, 184 New Zealand school pools have had to close in the past five years, and about 300 pools have closed nationwide in the past decade.

- © Fairfax NZ News