EDUCATION COSTS

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20956, 9 September 1933, Page 19

EDUCATION COSTS

•JO THE KDITOa OF THE PBE3S. Sir, —I have been directed by the executive of the New Zealand Educational Institute to reply to the statement concerning education costs, by the Hon. E. A. Ransom, as reported in "The Press" of September 1. The executive is anwed at the misleading nature of the statement. The mere quotation of the yearly totals of expenditure extending over a period of nearly 20 years cannot fail to give a totally wrong impression of the real facts. The three salient facts to be taken into account are first, the fall in the value of money; second, the increased number of pupils in the schools; I third, the wide extension of services I now charged to the education vote. The Government Statistician gives the value of the pound to-day as compared with 1914 as 15s. Hence the £1 16s 2d a head of population given as the estimated cost for 1934 is less than a shilling above the cost of 1914, though the number of pupils had grown by more than 50,000, and extensive additions had been made to the services rendered; e.g., the child-v/elfare department, the education of the blind, and the school for the deaf, all of which are now charged to the education vote. The amount of saving claimed by Mr Ransom for 1934, as compared with the peak year, 1931, is £1,374,000 out of £4.l74,ooo—very nearly one-third —has been made, he says, mostly in cost of administration. The fact is that the total cost of administration, including both department and education boards, is given in the latest official documents available as £71,660, and the greatest amount of saving discoverable in the reports can be estimated at about £9OOO. How can it be said then that a saving of £1,374,000 has been made, mostly in cost of administration? Mr Ransom expressed the opinion that it could not truthfully be said that the reduction in the vote bad been made at the expense of efficiency. Against this the executive asserts with knowledge of the facts that in nearly every important particular efficiency has been impaired to a serious extent and that the general education now being given in the schools is not, and cannot be so good as it was four years ago. Facts which support this statement are:—Five-year-olds excluded from schools; staffs reduced and classes enlarged; hand-work material withheld: scholarships abolished and nothing substituted; number of inspectors reduced; supply of relieving teachers restricted; grant for science and sewing withdrawn; transport of country children restricted; kindergarten subsidy withdrawn; numerous small schools closed; additional assistants withdrawn; bursaries withdrawn in some cases—reduced in others; commercial instructors dispensed with. The executive concludes this reply with the assertion that the primary education service has been unmercifully slashed and it asks two questions: How many of the general public know that the education vote has been cut down by one-third, or desired that it should be? Is it fair or just or reasonable that such an unreasonably large share of the national burden should be cast on the children?— Yours, etc., G. R. ASHBRIDGE, Secretary, New Zealand Educational Institute. September 8, 1933.