EDUCATION VOTE OVERSPENT

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29291, 24 August 1960, Page 15

EDUCATION VOTE OVERSPENT

Provision Of Extra Classrooms

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, August 23.

Education Department estimates for 1959 of £7,500,000 for major capital works and £250.000 for replacements were both overspent, according to the department’s annual report tabled in the House of Representatives today. The total expenditure of £8,160,720 consisted of £7,854,805 on major capital works and £305,915 on replacements. If expenditure on minor capital works, furniture and equipment was included, the total amount spent on building, land, furniture and equipment during 1959 was £9.337,460, compared with £8,026,226 in 1958. During 1959, 880 classrooms and 78 houses were built, an increase in both cases over the previous year’s total of 811 and 64 respectively. Of the classrooms, 689 were additional permanent rooms, 68 were replacements of obsolete rooms and 35 were specialist rooms. The total also included 88 prefabricated additional rooms. The report noted that the decision to provide 30 houses for post-primary teachers in country service schools at the rate of 60 a year for five years should make service in country areas more attractive than it had been in the past.