The Press Thursday, August 13, 1931. The Cost of Education.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20314, 13 August 1931, Page 8

The Press Thursday, August 13, 1931. The Cost of Education.

In his interesting statement at last ' night's meeting of the School Com- ; mittees Association Mr S. R. Evison , usefully analysed the education vote and showed where reductions have ' already been made. The 10 per cent, cut on the salaries bill, last year £2,561,440, of course accounts for by far the largest part of the total; is, in fact, almost exactly three-quarters of it. But though Mr Evison is alarmed by the diminished estimate for maintenance, lie does not seriously challenge these reductions or oppose the search for more. His real fear is that a "hasty search" may end in crippling the system, and for this reason Mr Evison urges that no further reductions should be made until the Committee has reported, that all sections of the educational system should be represented on it, and that the report i-iiould go before "a board of educa••tional authorities,'' competent to '• relate the findings . . to the national -policy.*' The first of these safeguards" is of course already provided for in the Budget statement, where the Prime Minister said that some proposed economies [in the education system] had been held over, pending the special investigation. The others might be considered necessary if it were proposed to recast educational policy, though it would probably be a great deal better to invite a single expert Commissioner to undertake the job; but since the Government seems to intend nothing more than an attempt to get the same results (or better) at less cost from the system as it is, such precaution would gain nothing but the lengthening of a delay already too long. Apart from teachers' salaries, education last year cost approximately £2,000,000. This included the large amount spent on new buildings, on which the Department has wasted money for years, putting up bad schools at a high cost when it might have put up better ones for less. But if this is the direction where the largest immediate saving may be found, it is far from being the only one that invites attention. Other expenditure can I be reduced, or cut out altogether, or postponed. It is convenient sometimes to think of the education system as a machine, the efficiency of which may be injured by taking something away from it; but it is much more like a working laboratory, in which, if necessary, and oven with advantage, the amount spent on apparatus and organisation can be considerably cut down. Sir William Ramsay did some of his best work with apparatus improvised out of tobacco tins and odds and ends of wire and tubing, and felt no envy of his American colleagues, lecturing from gold rostra and experimenting on marbletopped benches. The Dominions education system also need not suffer because it must be less generously supplied and less elaborately administered.