EDUCATION’S NEEDS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XLV, Issue 10168, 24 July 1924, Page 2

EDUCATION’S NEEDS

THE GROWING EXPENDITURE.

PRIME MINISTER’S STATEMENT

(Special to the “Guardian.”) WELLINGTON, July 23. Matters in reference to education were reviewed by Mr Massey in the course of his financial statement this evening. He said the expenditure fr-oin Government sources on education services during the past financial year was as follows:—From Consolidated fund: Vote, Department of Education, £2,604,508, Special Acts £96,506 teachers’ superannuation fund £68,000, primary education reserves revenue £IOB,071, secondary education reserves revenue £8,287, Native schools endowment revenue £l5O, national endowment revenue £77,788, education loans for buildings £295,681, public buildings fire insurance fund £12,490. Total, £3,271,781. A . If to this is added the amount derived by Secondary-school Boards and University College Councils from reserves vested in them—about £78,100 -—the total expenditure from public sources is approximately £36349,900, as compared with £3,286,000 in 1922-23. The total expenditure has grown from £1,233,328 in 1911-12 to £3,271,781 in 1923-24, or an increase of 166 per cent., whilst the total cost of education for the current year is estimated at £3,351,000. In 1911 the average salary for an adult primary-school teacher was cnly £l6O, but the salaries were increased by the 1914 Act, and were subsequently further increased until the average now is £268, or 67 per cent higher. In the secondary scale the average salary of principals in 1911 was £464, and that of assistants only £2Ol. First by increasing the capitation grant, and afterwards by improving a Dominion scale of salaries, these averages were increased to £636 and £315, while similar provision has been made for improving the salaries of technical teachers.

The cost of education mounts up as the school population increases and extended use is made of the pi .v-leges of free secondary and higher education. While is it is matter of satisfaction that the number of children taking post-primary courses in our schools is thus increasing, it is a question whether the present system does not tend rather to induce young people to follow a line of education and training that has a bias towards the professional and clerical, to the disadvantage of practical agricultural and industrial pursuits; and the Department is giving its attention to this problem with the view of evolving a provision which should give a sound post-primary education to the pupils who do not go on to the University or the professions. The large sum of £1,993,985' has been expended since 1918-19 in meeting the pressing demand for school buildings, and suitable provision is being made for continued progress in this important connection.