THE DISTRICT HIGH SCHOOLS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1974, 29 June 1900, Page 6

THE DISTRICT HIGH SCHOOLS.

The following is a copy of a letter sent to the Minister of Education by the Rev. P. B. Fraser, a member of the Otago Education Board : Shy—Referring to my telegram to you, dated June 6,-respectfullv requesting you to delay your sanction to the proposals of the Otago' Board of Education to increase the district high school lees, contained, in letter dated May 21, I desire to.thank you for the courtesy of yourreply : that you would delay action as 'requested. Though I am a member of the' Board, and paid diligent ' attention to its proceedings, I was entirely i unaware of the existence of such a letter until I happened to write for copies of all correspondence with sour department. I now beg to direct your attention to the misleading nature of that communication, and to the inaccuracies therein, all of which were fitted, no doubt unintentionally, to completelv mislead you in this important matter, and to inflict an irreparable injury and wrong on the country children of Otago. I note the following three points:—-(1) That " over £I,OOO per annum " are paid in the district high schools of Otago for the teaching of "extra subjects." . (2) I note the comparison of cost of secondary education at Dunedin and Oamaru with that of the district high schools. (3) I shall refer to the statement that, as the in Dunedin and Oamaru pay " about £lO in fees, the countrv settlers should pay more bv 150 per cent." than they do for the measure of secondary education provided m the district high schools. First, as to the statement that the Board is at present paying over £I,OOO for the extra subjects in the district high schools more than would be paid if these were "ordinary" schools. To begin with, the comparison is founded on a fallacy, unworthv of an Education Board, because the schools compared are imcomparable, for there are no " ordinary " schools of the same size as the district high schools, which have an attendance of from 30 to 40 pupils that have passed .the Sixth Standard. In an "ordinary" school the Board cannot shut its door against pupils that have passed the Sixth Standard and. are under the age of 16. The extra pupils in the district high schools are mostly of this class; all have passed the Sixth Standard, though a few of the most senior are.over 16 years of age. And since the Board draws a capitation on these pupils of £3 15s, surely:it is to be presumed that even in an " ordinary school the teaching of such advanced pupils, both as to education and age, would, be more, costly than the teaching of children under the Sixth Standard or in Standard I. Mm* 30 or 40 pupils in each of the district high schools were being taught at a greater cost than pupils in an " ordinary school, though the said or 40 had not themselves passed; the "ordinary stan-dards-that is, I. to VL-the comparison would have been validY but everyone knows that it is more costly to teach children of \t to 16 vearsof age that have passed Standard VI. whether they are in a so-called district high school or not. Now, the Board has no "ordinary" schools with which to compare the district high schools, because it has no " ordinary " schools of an average attendance of from 220 to 250 having 30 to 40 pupils in attendance who; have passed-Standard VI., for whom it draws capitation, and ought, therefore,, to provide,some.sort of advanced education adequate to the years and calibre of the pupils. Plainly, ,the..ages .of standard and education in, the.district high schools are greatlv higher than ;those of ah ordi : nary" school .'of the same size; hence the same number of pupils of like age and intellectual capacity would cost more than the average expense «f "ordinary" pupils, whether thev belonged to an " ordinary or to a district -high- school.. The comparison .is not the but of the Ji,uniber..of, subjects, .of their dim r culty,. and .of ;the dumber of classes taught. If the work; and'requjsite intellectual calibre of the higher staff of the district high school be compared with ike work and the needful intellectual calibre of men whose salaries in much larger " ordinary" schools are equal to or.greater than those'of;the higher:staff of a district high school, the comparison will be all in favor of.what is needful.in the case, of the staff of a district high school. Here, for instance, is a' large Dunedin school, where, although;there is an average attendance of over .600, there is an X class of only eleven puipils, corresponding to the 50 or 40 X class pupils in a district high school having only 250 pupils. A few hundred pupils more" or less in the junior departments of a city school do not add greatly or proportionately to the work or responsibility of the head-teacher and the higher staff: but a district .high school, besides having all the classes and subjects of an " ordinary " school, has, in addition, five or six other advanced subjects, and from 14 to 16 more classes of advanced work. The salaries of the higher teachers in the city school referred to amount to £735, and those of the district high school higher staff, even allowing the £BS added for an extra assistant, amount to £740. -The salaries of the higher I teachers of another city school with 12 in class X amount to £785. I submit that the principle of making merely the numbers attending the school the sole criterion of the importance of a staff and their scale of payment is most fallacious, and likely to prove disastrous to all education in the country. The marvel is how the staff of a. district high school accomplish the work they do, and that they- successfully compete with the Otago high schools, so splendidly equipped as they are. These high schools with which our district high schools compete cost thousands of pounds for their teaching staff, and average (parliamentary return 1899) 12 pupils to. each member of the staff. The comparison drawn between our district high schools and other " ordinary." schools .merely on the score of numbers is, therefore, misleading and most unjust;. and I have referred to it at this length owing to its importance to country -education, because it is the ground of the whole attack on the cost and the salaries of the district high schools and of the smaller schools of the province. The case against the letter sent to you is greatly increased in force when it is pointed out that the alleged facts on which the fallacious argument adduced in it is based are themselves wholly misstated and misleading. The statement that at present the district high schools cost the Board "over £1,000" is designed to tell you, as Minister of Education, that the estimated extra cost of these schools, based on attendance last available, and on the conditions and regulations known to be in force for the current year, amounts to " over £1,000." No other inference could bs drawn from the statement. .When I got ;i copy of the letter in question I at once asked* for details of the £I,OOO, and Mr Pryde, the Board's secretary, sent me a return showing extra cost amounting to £1,061. As the return contained the sum of £l4o—the cost of a school disrated three months ago—and was otherwise inaccurate, I asked for a correct return, but was informed (hat the one sent was "correct"—"practically correct.". T have since, in answer to further inquiry, received another return, totally at variance with the first, and no less misleading. I mention this because it tends to show the difficulty of making the comparison, and how it is probable that the members of the Board have been misled. Making an investigation. I find the gross "extra" salaries paid to the teachers for the. current year, based on attendance of 'ast quarters* and applying the Board's regula-

tiens and arrangements for the current year, to be:—Milton : Head-t€acher, £BS ; matron, nil j first assistant, £4O; extra teacher, £BS; total, £210.. Lawrence: Head-teacher, £BS; matron, nil; first assistant, £4O; extra teacher, £BS; total, £2lO. Palmerston : Head-teacher, £BS ; matron, nil; first assistants £4O ; extra teacher, £BS ; total, £210.. JMclutha: Head-teacher, £BS; matron, nil; first assistant, nil; extra teacher, £BS total, £l7O. Equal to £800; this against.Mr Piyde'a £1,061. But. by the new regulations, the Board has confiscated the fees formerly paid as salary to the staff. I find that for five years past these i fees average £155 per annum; and, as the Board have resolved to see them collected in , advance, the fees will prqbably total £2OO. i This, deducted from £796, leaves £596. There is yet another saving effected by the Board consequent on its establishing district high schools, and that is the difference in cost of scholarship-holders attending the district high schools, and those going to Dunedin, amounting to £2O per scholar. For five years past, by the four schools now existing, the Board have saved £720, an average of £144 per annum. Deducting this from £596, we have just £452 as the net extra cost of the four schools, or £lls each. This is surely very different frni the £1,061, stated by the secretary to the great detriment of the district high schools, and, it might be, to the irretrievable injury of coun- • try 1 education. There is another fact that should have been mentioned to you, as, from the secre tary's letter, one is apt to gather that the district hisjh schools are, as a whole, very costly. Taking the whole attendance of ali standards at the district high schools, each pupil cost in the past year £4 ss, against the capitation earned of £3 15s; or just 15s per pupil more than what was earned Moreover, if we take, an actual case—that of Milton —calculated on the basis of last quarter's attendance, and under regulations and reductions for the current year, we have : Revenue: Capitation on 227 by £io%, equals £B5l 5s ;. fees of 25 pupils at average under the old scale of 25s per annum, equals £3l 5s ; saving on one scholarship holder, £2O. Total, £902 10s. Expenditure : Rector, - £340 ; matron, £115; first assistant, £200; three pupil-te-tellers, £75; extra teacher, £BS; committee allowance. £4O. Total, £855. v This shows that on the basis of ' last quarter's attendance, and under new.'regula tions and reductions, without taking m the amount of the proposed increased fees, Mil ton is to the good bv £47 10s. If the same holds good of the other schools, then, taking the gross revenue of the schools and gross expenditure, the Board will be in pocket by nearly £2OO per annum. V 2.. Referring now to the comparison drawn between "the measure of. secondary education" at Dunedin and Oamaru an 1 that of country districts, and the inference that country "settlers should pay 150 per : cent, more than before, I bring before your notice some startling facts forgotten by ' the writer of the Board's letter. Let a comparison be drawn between what the State . .does. for -secondary education in Oamaru and Dunedin and what it expend:; on all other parts of this province. The Otigo High Schools in Dunedin—per parliamentary return, 1899—show a gross revenue of £6,024. Of this sum., £2,857 are from State endowments, and £2,420 from fees, of which the Otago Board of Education appears to pay £350. At the time of that return the -Boys' School had 166 pupils, and the Girls' 11*1. or 277 in all. The gross revenue divided by- 277 gives a cost of £2l per pupil. Deducting the fees, the annual 'cost to the State is fill per. pupil, and as a proportion of these pupils have never .passed Standard VI. before entry, the real cost of pupils equal in age and calibre to those in .our district high schools is very much more. Moreover, there is a staff for both schools -of'22, giving an average to each member ! of the staff of just 12 pupils. Let it be borne in mind that the pupils attending these splendidly-equipped .schools compete for the scholarships of the Otago Board with the pupils attending the district higu and other primary schools throughout the province. The salaries of the staff for these '277 pupils, some of whom have not passed : Standard VI.. amount to £4,255. liier, take Oamaru—i.e.. the Waitaki High School: Revenue, £2,377; fees only £717. Bovs 64. girls 35—say, 100. Here the cost to'the State is £l6'per pupil. A parliamentary return savs that 27 of the above pupils b»d not passed Standard IV. Defor* .entrv. There is a staff of 10, giving an average of 10 pupils to each teacher. ..And let this be borne in mind : that a prospectus of this splendid bovs' school says—"Boys are eligible for the Otago Education Board'* .tuxior scholarship, and special pains will be taken to prepare them for that examin •-• tion." Children in all our primary school throughout Otago are thus pitted against the children of these public State-endowed institutions, so splendidly staffed and equipped; and the Otago Education Board, the natural guardians of the educational in teresis of Otago children, have onlv one policv of progress to suggest on their behalf to increase the cost of secondary education to countrv children by 150 per cent,, or even to close the district high schools, as has been done with one and attempted with another, thus crippling all. To sum tin this comparison, secondary education at Dunedin and Oamaru, and within the watershed of these schools, costs a gross sum of £8.401 per annum, of which the State pays, including fees amounting to £3OO from the Otago Education Board for scholarshipholders, £4,807. or about £l2 per head for pupils, some of Whom ought to be attending a city " ordinary" school at a cost to the State of £2 15s* The secondary education of 377 pupils in these favored partsthorefore costs £8,401, of which the State pays-£4,807,, or £l2 per pupil, while in the whole province outside of these centres about £450 for 130 pupils, or £3 10s. is the State's contribution for secondary education or " extra subjects." It may be added that if the State made the rail free to all children attending strict hi"h schools—as it might well do both for them and the high schools—the numbers attending would be greatly increased with little or no additional cost for teaching. 3. Lastlv, as to the extraordinary statement, inexcusable as coming from the Otago Education Office, that, for the splendid equipment of the Waitaki High Schools, the. parents pay about " £lO in fees." whence it is inferred that country settlers should have the cost of their " measure of education " increased 150 per cent., the fact is that the fees for pupils are fast £4 10s per annum in the Waitaki High Schools. The extraordinary nature of the document sent you, which, in the circumstances, should have" erred rather in moderation than in exaggeration and distortion, and the vital importance of this subject to the well-being of ■the struggling and ingenuous youth of provincial Otago, are my excuse for the length of this memorandum. It is possible, in the. circumstances of its preparation, that some correcting factors may be applied to some of my figures ; but the main contention will remain unshaken —that a more misleading and ungenerous, and indeed cruel, document was never sent out of any educai tion office in our land. ! Hoping that my statement of the case for secondary education in the. countrv districts (if the Province of Otago may result, in more attention being devoted to the subject, and respectfullv offering this document to your consideration. The following is the memorandum by the secretary of tho Education Board, which formed the subject of yesterday's debate ;

Education Office, Dunedin, May*2l, 1900. The Secretary Education Department,-Wel-t lington. | Referring to the Education Board's application for the Minister's consent to the alteration of the scale of fees payable at district high schools in the Otago education district, and to the Pahnerston School Committee's letter of the 27th April objecting io the proposed increase of fees, I have now to inform' you that the Education Board have again considered the whole matter of district high schools, and cannot see their way to depart from their recommendation contained in my letter of date 21st March last. I was directed to point out that the teaching of the extra subjects at these schools at present entails upon the Board an outlay in salaries of over £I,OOO per annum, and the Board consider that they have a right to expect the settlers of the districts concerned to contribute to the cost more than they are at present doing. Further, in Dunedin, Oamaru, Invercargill, and other places the cost to parents of secondary education is about £lo per pupil per annum, and the Board do not consider that they are inflicting an injustice upon country settlers in requiring from them, for the measure of secondary education which is provided at the district high schools, the payment of the rates set forth in the Board's recommendation, the highest of which is just half of the rate ruling in Dunedin. ' In conclusion, I liave to express the hope that the Minister will see his way to give effect to the Board's recommendation by giving the necessary instructions for the issue of the Order-in-Council authorising the increase in the fees.