EDUCATIONAL

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 29 April 1922, Page 5

EDUCATIONAL

BOARD AND DEPARTMENT,

(BY TELEGRAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION.)

WELLINGTON, April 29. The Secretary of, the Education Department wrote to the Wellington Board stating that the Department objected to the Board paying interest on investments into the general fund, and insisting that interest must follow capital and be credited to the account from which it is derived. Exception was also taken to the expenditure on the general account exceeding the receipts by £2000.

The chairman said the practice with regard to interest was of long standing and had the approval of the Government auditors. He also referred adversely to the new regulations regarding technical and life saving classes. They had eight small technical centres, and four of them would not now be able to carry on. They should protest strongly against the attitude of the Department with regard to the general account. The grant to the Board had been unwarrantably reduced, in spite of increases in costs of all sorts.

Members of the Board were -practically unanimous in condemning the Department's attitude, and one declared that it was about time a Royal Commission was appointed to investigate its methods, for the results would astonish the community. It was decided to return a reply that the Audit Department * had for years held the Board's procedure with regard to interest to be correct.