EDUCATION VOTE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXX, 6 October 1936, Page 7

EDUCATION VOTE

“PRETTY GOOD START” THIS YEAR’S INCREASE “National Education,” the journal of the New Zealand Educational Institute in an editorial article, comments as follows on the Government vote for educations: — “Twelve months ago a headline ‘Three-quarters of £1,00,000 for Education’ would have been passed over by the discerning reader as a catchcry. Now, thanks to the energy, pertinacity, and vision of the Minister for Education (the Hon. P. Fraser) it is an accomplished fact—a fact for which teacher, parents, and educationists generally will be very grateful. To get the full measure of Mr Fraser’s achievement, it must be remembered that outside the educational circle is a clamouring throng, armed with genuine social grievances, demanding the time, the attention, and the money of the Government. In spite of this, educational expenditure is to be increased this year by over £700,000. “There is an additional £52,000 for the incidental expenses of school committees. The libraries grant remains at the pitifully inadequate sum of £I2OO, but this is explained by the fact that the Government has not yet had time to draw up a Dominion-wide schools. It is a reform that will come later, but cannot come too soon. The salary bill has been increased to provide for the restoration of the ‘cuts’ and for the increased staffs necessary to cope with the readmitted five-year-olds. Reopening of two training colleges and greater activity in the training of the additional teachers that will be required to reduce the size of classes, accounts for an increase of over £IOO,OOO, at once one of the largest single increases and one of the most essential. These are only a few of the items in the Education Estimates. All told, including every branch of the service, a total of over £650,000 is provided for: a pretty good start for a new Minister and a new Government, faced not only with novel problems, but with overwhelming arrears.”