The Lyttelton Times. WEDNESDAY, MAY 13, 1908. THE COST OF EDUCATION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXIX, Issue 14682, 13 May 1908, Page 6

The Lyttelton Times. WEDNESDAY, MAY 13, 1908. THE COST OF EDUCATION.

We seem to have incurred the displeasure of some of the school teachers because, in commenting on the promotion scheme, we advised the Educational Institute not to prejudice the scheme by making it carry a general increase of salaries. We may put ourselves right with the critics once for all: The implication was not that teachers were already sufficiently paid, but that Parliament would not willingly sanction the echemo if it involved a substantial increase of the- education rote. As a matter of fact, we have urged again and again that primary school teachers, especially in remote districts and in tho lower grades of the service, are underpaid. But the education vote has been very nearly doubled in the last ten years, and demands are being made every day for additional expenditure, for new and larger schoob, for special grants towards secondary and technical education, for extra class rooms, for single desks and for free school books. The Minister of Education may well urge that he cannot find nioro money for salaries. Mr Fowlds has been accused of treating the teachers unsympathetically, and his comparison of the wages of teachers with those of artisans is quoted against him. But when the Minister reduced the teacherc' salaries . to the basis of payment by tho hour, he was merely showing how tho matter looked to the artisan, and not endorsing the argument. He has admitted the desirability of increases, but of course the amount of money at his disposal is limited. The teachers can best serve their cause now by indicating where the expenditure on education may bo reduced, and we are glad to find that some attention is being devoted to this aspect of the question. A Southland schoolmaster who recently analysed the budgets of the last twelve years had no difficulty in showing that salaries were responsible for only a very Rmall proportion of the increase in the total education vote. In 189-1. the sum of £449,756 was appropriated for education purposes; in 1906 the vote reached £923,574, an increase of over 100 per cont in the twelve years. The average attendances at the primary schools advanced in the same period from 103,490 to 121,958, roughly by 20 per cent. In 1894 there were 3306 teachers receiving £342,072 for salaries, an average of £lO3 9s. In 1906 there were 3872 teachers receiving £478,831, and averaging £123 13s. Seeing that sewing mistresses are no longer included in these returns, and that the number of pupil teachers has been reduced by onehalf, it is evident that the actual increase in the salaries of certificated teachers has been small. This, at any rate, is the argument of tho Southland teacher. His case is strengthened, again, by an examination of other departments of expenditure. The Education Boards' expenses of management have increased from £24,117 to £35,148, rouohly 46 per cent, and the cost of the head office from £2430 to £8033, or 230 per cent. Then industrial schools, which absorbed only £10,086 in 1894, required £35,507 in 1906, and the vote for Native schools rose from £15,378 to £27,507. But the most striking increases are shown in the figures for secondary and technical education. The State grant for technical education in 1891 was only £722. though doubtless the Boards were finding a much larger sim out of their general revenue. In 1906 the vote was £67.554, an enormous advance for which the country is not yet receiving an adequate-return. Then the grants for secondary and university education rose from a paltry £14.223 in 1891 to over £IOO.OOO in 1900. ' We must say that we find it hard to quarrel with moist of these increases, though if the ru'.blic were to ask for evidence that the country is 1f)0 per cent better off in the matter nf educational facilities than it was in 189-1 we might be unable t" satisfy them. Perhaps the teachers themselves, with their intimate knowledge of the system, will be able, to show from the fi<rums where economies could properly be effected.