COST OF EDUCATION

Evening Star, Issue 20361, 18 December 1929, Page 12

COST OF EDUCATION

KEW SOUTH WALES BILL £•0,200,000 LAST TEAR. In a recent speech in Sydney the New South Wales State Treasurer, Mr B. S. Stevens, announced that during its two years of office the present Government had spent £1,837,875 in the erection of school buildings, in purchase of sites and furniture, and in repairs, improvements, and extensions. During 1928 nearly 200 buildings were begun, and many of them completed, and the total for this year had almost reached the same figure. In 1925 twenty-siv school buildings and sites cost £380.,000; in 1926-27, £503,000; in 1927-28, £572,000; and in 1928-29, £739,000. During the period from 1925 to 1929 the yearly expenditure on repairs and furniture had grown from £192,000 to £249,000. At the present day, Mr Stevens- went on, the education system of New South Wales was recognised as ono of the finest in the world. The proportion of illiterates in the community could be measured fairly accurately from the number of mark signatures in the marriage registers, and it had been found last year that the number represented less than two per thousand of the persons married. There were nearly 11,000 men and women teaching in the State public schools, and the enrolment of pupils was almost 400,000- In 1926-27 education cost the State £4,593,000. In 1927-28 the cost had increased to £4,920,000, and in 1928-29 to £5,200,000, or exactly a quarter of the aggregate expenditure on Government services payable out of consolidated revenue.