NOT EXTRAVAGANT

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 4 May 1931, Page 10

NOT EXTRAVAGANT

COST OF TECHNICAL EDUCATION STATEMENTS STRONGLY CRITICISED Statements made at a recent meeting of the. Canterbury Education Board, that the cost of technical education was cessive and extravagant, were severely criticised by the chairman of the Christchurch Technical College Board of Governors, Mr McGregor Wright, reports the “Times.” “A statement published in the newspapers on 18th April, as part of the report of the meeting of the Canterbury Education Board, on the relative costs of education, which if correct would indicate that the cost of post-primary education is excessive and that technical high school education is extravagant, requires special attention and immediate contradiction,” he said. “From the way that the return was published it would cause readers to believe that the cost of teachers’ salaries per pupil was as follows :—Primary school, £8 12s; secondary school, £l4 7s; Technical High School, £2l 6s lid.”

The chairman said he was not in a position to provide a statement of the correct costs per pupil for the Dominion as a whole, nor was anyone outside the Education Department able to do so, but the actual cost per pupil in salaries for the Christchurch Technical College in 1930 was £13,990 for 1043 pupils, an average of £l3 8s 3d per pupil. That was very different from £2l 6s lid per pupil as stated in the Education Board’s report. Jt was remarkable that the person who compiled the statistics should have charged tho whole of the manual and technical teachers’ salaries against the technical high schools only, overlooking the fact that a considerable proportion was used for paying the teachers of 11,000 part-time pupils as well, and possibly also the teachers of manual training in the primary schools. The return was obviously prepared without due care, and the results might be very harmful to the technical branch of education.

NUMBER OF PUPILS “A statement made by a member ot the Education Board at the same meeting also needs immediate correction,' continued the chairman. “It was that in staffing, secondary schools aim at 20 pupils per class, primary schools at 40. Hero is the regulation governing the staffing of technical high schools (and one that is strictly enforced by the Education Department): ‘ln every technical high school there shall not be more than one full-time assistant for each complete 28 pupils on the roll of the school on the first day of March. In secondary school's the staffing allowance is almost identical with that in the technical high schools. “In practice such a regulation means that many of our classes are over 30 and several over 40 in roll number, for in advanced specialised courses the numbers should of necessity be small, and a corresponding increase above 28 is therefore unavoidably compulsory in other classes. I should like to assure the members of the Canterbury Education Board and the general public also that the technical high schools and technical classes are definitely not being pampered at the expense of primary or any other branch of education, nor arc they carried on at unnecessary expense to the country.” The chairman’s repot t was adopted, and ii was decided that a copy should be sent to the chairman of the Canterbury Education Board.