COST OF EDUCATION

Greymouth Evening Star, 10 September 1931, Page 10

COST OF EDUCATION

” SCOPE FOR ECONOMIES. In New Zealand, as in other countries, there is to-day an absolute need for reduction in the cost of that most., expensive of social services, national education. As. a generalisation this meets with widespread approval, but in the discussion of ways and means by which an annual charge of over £4,000,000 may be 'reduced to a size proportionate t,o shrunken national income, sectional and personal interests immediately voice strenuous piotest, and raise the issues of injury to our system and restricting privileges that the poorer classes now enjoy. It is the purport of this article, states the New Zealand Herald, to show that in all the main ramifications of our extending education system very substantial economies can be effected without in any way injuring the prospects of the individual child or limiting deserved facilities for his complete trainingAgainst the claim for economies is being raised the cry, “Hands off our primary schools.” Yet even in this most essential sphere of State educational activity there is safe scope for retrenchment. In: the current yeai s estimates provision is - jnade for £1,567,000 for primary teachers’ salaries. Throughout the Dominion there are about 150 schools of the largest size, grade VI and VII., in which, judged on - the basis of the grading system, odr nlost efficient teachers are employed as heads. It is the almost invariable custom for these headmasters to take no definite class. Their time is devoted to organisation, supervision and clerical work, which in commercial avenues would be secured for a maximum of 30/- a week. Their salaries average at. least £550 a year, a rough total of £ RO,OOO for the Dominion; Each year a goodly number of these headmasters retire on superannuation. In Auckland alone there will be over a dozen who will, or can, in December, do so. If, instead of filling these positions, the authorities were to appoint a junior at £l5O a year to each school, allowing it to be organised and controlled by the senior assistants without salary increase, there would be a saving of about £4OO in each institution, that could be maintained until such time as a reorganisation of the system permited the grouping of two or more schools under one headmaster, whose powers could be extended to limit the high cost now incurred in annual inspections. The inflexibility of many regulations and the complications arising from overburdening salaries and grading schemes militate against other economies. Were senior inspectors given the power to adjust school staffs and classes to secure most efficient and least costly working many minor savings could be made- In Auckland City alone two or three big schools could be closed and their pupils distributed among neighbouring ones •without hardship, and every teacher could be employed teaching to his or her full capacity. Naturally, protests would arise from teachers -who see chances of promotion fading, but such chances must of necessity be sacrificed in -the interests of national saving.

Some years ago about a hundred of the senior lady assistants were given a £3O increment, in view bf the extra duties in games, organisation, etc., falling upon them. Would it be too much to suggest that at least part of this now be deducted? Adjustment of school staffs on the lines suggested, closing of unnecessary schools and other economies, might well reduce the. sum for primary teachers’ salaries by £lOO,OOO, and still leave our system functioning as efficiently as of yore.

WASTE IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS.

Well over a quarter of a million is requisitioned for salaries of teachers in secondary schools of the Dominion, and the problem is not so much the reduction of supervision costs, for the average secondary school headmaster does more actual teaching than does his primary confrere. Secondary instruction, according to figures in Recent reports, has been costing £2i a pupil- On nearly 25 per cent, of these pupils this sum is largely wasted, since they remain at the secondary schools for periods averaging a. year or less. If a two-year minimum of attendance were insisted upon, and provision made for those who would not comply with' this condition in extension, or Standard VII., classes attached to certain defined primary schools, these children could receive efficient, and perhaps more suitable instruction at less than £lO a head. Thciough organisation could save at least £50,000 in teaching costs for secondary pupils- Economics of a similar type, but on smaller scale, could bo” obtained in our technical schools, for which £168,000 in salaries alone is now appropriated. One of the most outstanding features of extravagance is in connection with the training of teachers. For allowances to trainees at our four colleges £107,000 is required, while £35,000 is needed to pay the special staffs engaged in training them, and £6OOO is paid in university fees of students. Approximately each teacher in training costs the State over £l5O per annum. Teachers are in oversupply, and from all indications must, remain so for years. Two training colleges and a greatly reduced vote should suffice in this branch.

Inspection of schools is unduly costly. About 60 inspectors of various types cover the country at a cost of £34,000 in salaries and £ll,OOO in travelling expenses, while physical instructors, or inspectors’, add £BOOO to the expenditure. No fewer than four different types of inspectors may be working in the same district at the same time. If one director is capable of controlling all branches of our system, surely one in inspector should be fitted to assess the efficiency of all branches of primary and secondary work, even though he may not have special qualifications in some branches. The inspection vote could be cut by half if some simple system were substituted for the expensive grading scheme which now occupies so much of inspectors’ time. Surely general administration of the service offers a chance for the pruning knife. This year’s Estimates indicate a clerical staff of 118, costing £30,193, in the central department alone. As well, there is’a grant of £36,450 to education boards for administrative purposes, £33,000 to secondary schools boards, and £32,000 to technical schools boards for administration and material. A business man, if I allowed freedom to investigate/ should be able to cut the expensive 1

duplication that has arisen, and the excessive demands for returns and figure, and save many thousands. In its earliest days our Education Department had, it is stated, four clerks. It, for purely administrative work, a fixed small percentage of the annual vote were made the limit of expenditure, education would benefit. In the Child Welfare Department alone 167 officials draw salaries totalling £31,744. Officialdom may say all of this is necessary, but the community doubts if it is obtaining its money’s worth.