BRITISH EDUCATION.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 12 September 1924, Page 7

BRITISH EDUCATION.

ESTIMATED TO COST OVER' SEVENTY MILLIONS.

Interesting comparisons of the cost of education are contained in a memorandum on the British Board of Education’s Estimates for 1924-25, which was issued recently (reports the Daily Telegraph). Including the forms of expenditure which come within the purview of the Board of Education, such as expenditure from public funds on universities, agricultural education, and on reformatory and industrial schools, in addition to elementary and higher education the total sum to be expended on education in England and Wales during 1924-25 is estimated at £74,720,000, at, compared with the provisional amount of £72,677,000 for 1923-24. With regard to the board’s estimates, totalling £41,900,000, a reduction. of £34,047 on the previous year, it is stated that, in general terms, the main features of the estimates are that they amount to the same total, in round figures, as those for last year; that they show an in-i crease of more than £1,000,000 on teachers’ pensions; that specific limits are no longer to be imposed upon the expenditure of local authorities to be recognised for grant; that the grants will suffice to meet an enlarged expenditure by local education authorities both on elementary and on higher education; and that some services under the direct management of the board (in the museums and Royal College of Art), which have of late, years been reduced or suspended, are to he restored.

The reasons why it i® possible, in spite of an increase of over £1,000,000 in teachers’ pensions, to provide for improvements in education without over-running the figure of last years estimates are: (a.) That a sum of about £260,000 is saved by the diminution of the board’s expenditure on the higher education of ex-service officers and men under a scheme which is now nearing its end; (b) that the actual expenditure of local education authorities m 1923-24, both on elementary and on higher education, is believed to have fallen far below their own estimates, and below the assumed fo S r U 7Q9qV Whlch J he !’ oard ’ s estimates £ fl 92 a' 24 r wer ? based ; c«) that owing +L th m * he num ber of births Sh^f h °° / ttendance in elementary schools continues to fall, in spite of the recent extension of the age limit With regard to the cost per child it is pointed out that if for 1923-24 the. expenditure of local education anthori4. i whlch includes the board’s g ants) amounts, as may be expected to about £07,500,000, and if thHverattendance (not yet ascertained) chiw 'TJ 1 a j t T o,l ° o,oooj then the cost Per child would amount to 225 s6d The board s estimate for 1924-25, which assumes an exenditure by local educational authorities of £SB 250 000 cost of 230 sSd po? child ,Mo ’ “ * number of teachers on Decernher 31 to 103,147, but the C estimate for 1924-25 assumes « „i *” fS