EDUCATION.

Northern Advocate, 3 December 1887, Page 2

EDUCATION.

Extravagant expenditure seems not to have teen confined to the Ministerial' Departments of the State. She Survey, the Land Purchase, and $Tie ' Native Departments have all been ■ deferred to as affording ample scope for ilih retrenchment knife. Education -«-as; also referred to, but it was *&*&£* fekS last of all., This/ however, appears to lie a 'delusion, and that even here vast sums of money are wasted. It appears thafc the Otago Board of Education have taken the initiative, " and have already, quite spontaneously, prepared a scheme of retrenchment in the Education Department of Otago which involves a diminution of the educational expenditure in that province to the extent of £10,000. A member of the Board, not a supporter of the Ministry, in writing to the Minister of Education, says " this reduction can be made without in the slightest degree impairing the system, and that in propounding this scheme the Board have the co-operation of the teachers." "We stated, some months since, that we believed £100,000 a year could be saved in this department without damage, and we believe still we were justified in that opinion. If, as a member of the Otago Board says, £10,000 can be saved in that province alone, " without in the slightest degree impairing the system," then we say that there has been a useless expenditure in the past, and that it is imperative that the Government insist on a proportionate reduction in other provinces. If this be done, our estimate of a possible saving is niuch nearer than was expected by many of our readers.