The Dominion TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1932. THE ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 32, 1 November 1932, Page 8

The Dominion TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1932. THE ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION

Many decisions have yet to be taken by the Covernment on the recommendations of the National Expenditure om dealinc with will require careful deliberation but others such as those' deall f the excessively costly administration of education, P , . and clear-cut case. What does the Government propose to do in

,hiS in its report submitted -pie that there was scope, and need, for .substantial with resoect to the district education boards.. .In various depart ments oUdministration the duties of tkese , autk ° rdie ®. ha J_ e^“ n curtailed. Instead of district salary scales there is now a ona salary scale; the appointments of teachers are based on a list; the inspectorate has been centralised; the Education depart ment exercises greater powers of supervision over the erection ot Sool buildings? the board’s accounts, and the training colleges, and has taken over entire control of scholarships and other, examinations In spite of this curtailment of duties the cost, of the. board system has increased instead of diminished, and increased xery substantially. In 1915, as the Commission pointsi out, the administrative and clerical officers of the boards numbered 79, while 14 others, exclusive of clerks of w p ork^^°^ m l e s n v a “ workmen, were engaged on. the buildings side. By , y ’ the administrative and clerical officers had increased y p •> and the building staffs by 133 per cent., while the average school attendance figure had increased by only 21.5 i per cent. Corresponding with the curtailment of the functions of the boards,, theie has been an increase in the administrative cost of the Education Department. That is easily understood. What puzzled the Commission, and must mystify the public, is that the boards’ expenditure went up instead of d obv i ous t h at if t h e transfer of duties from the boards to the Department was not accompanied by a corresponding curtailment of the board staffs, there must be a great deal of overlapping, For example, salaries are fixed by departmental regulations. Ihe Department provides the money and the boards pay the teachers. Ine Commission naturally wondered why the Department could not pay the salaries direct, and be done with it. Again, the boards appoint the teachers, but they are limited in their choice, first., by the Graded List, which is compiled by the inspectors, and second, by the fact that appointments made by them are. subject to the approval of the chief inspector for the district, who is.a departmental officer. A national appointments board could as efficiently, if not more so, deal with these matters from headquarters, and thereby exercise more effective supervision over the distribution of employment. It has been demonstrated frequently in the past that the boards possess considerable political influence. The Commission in its investigations noted a tendency on the part of each board to obtain as much as possible from the State by way of capital expenditure on sites and school buildings, and came to the conclusion that it was “politically difficult to exercise that measure of control over capital expenditure which the present state of the country’s finances, demands.’ Many members of Parliament are also members of education boards, which they found to be convenient stepping-stones to the Legislature. From this point of view there is as much need for ridding the education system of political influence as there was for emancipating the railways. By abolishing the boards an immediate saving of £50,000 a year would, considers the Commission, be possible, in addition to which further savings would accrue by making available a considerable portion of the existing office accommodation used by the boards. The retention of the school committees would ensure local interest, and the influence of these bodies, together with that exerted by a national board representative of all interests concerned, would act as an effective check upon undue bureaucratic tendencies. The Economy Committee of 1921 came to a similar conclusion. Indeed there is a clear case here for Government action in the interests of national economy.