SCHOOL ATTENDANCES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14000, 4 March 1909, Page 6

SCHOOL ATTENDANCES.

THE CAPITATION ALLOWANCE

AUCKLAND BOARDS PROTEST.

In a report presented to the Board of Education yesterday by the Finance Committee there was a paragraph recommending that a protest should bo sent -to the Minister against the new method of calculation of average attendance, upon which the statutory capitation grant of lie 3d was paid to the Board. ■

".The Chairman (Mr. C. J. Parr) oxplained this by saying that by section 6 of the Education Act it was enacted that payment* should be made to education boards in the following way:— sum of £250 per annum, together with a. sum of 116 3d per annum for each child in average daily attendance at a public school. It was further enacted that "such 'average daily attendance should be computed in manner prescribed by regulations." By the regulations, gazetted on December 18, 1908, it was stated that, for the purpose of the Education Act, 1908,' and the Act amending the same, the average 'attendance to be taken as the basis of computations ... for any district, should be the total of the yearly average attendances of all the schools in such district. There appeared to be a doubt whether tho new regulation revoked the regulations gazetted in January, 1888, in so ; far as thei pay- : ment of capitation to boards was concerned. Under the former regulations the Board i would be receiving capitation for the current quarter on the average attendance for the December quarter (31,495), viz., at the rate of £17,715 18s 9d a year.; Payment was now being, made by the Department, not on the total of the yearly average attendances i of the schools for 1908 (30.515), as stated in the new regulations, but on the mean of the average attendances of schools for the four quarters of 1908, i.e., an average attendance of 30,360. Payment was accordingly being made at the rate of £17,077 10s, which was less by £638 8s 9d than the Board would have received had the capitation been 'calculated under the now regulation. If the capitation was to be paid under the new regulation, the Board would be entitled to be paid on an average attendance of 30,515, which represented a capitation grant at the rate of £17,164 13s 9d. But even in that case, the bringing into operation of the new regulation would entail a loss of revenue to the Board for the current quarter at the rate of £551 5s a year. • It was manifest tliat, in an education district where the average attendance was falling, the education board would benefit by the new regulation, but in this district, in which the average attendance was . constantly increasing (the increase in attendance from March to December being no fewer than 2059 scholars), the effect of the new method of calculation would result in a serious loss of revenue to the Board. It might be stated that if capitation was to be paid to the Board on the new method of calculation, it would be ; necessary to revise the scale of payments to school committees, and to pay school fund allowance— not as at present on the average for the preceding quartet—but on the yearly average attendance. This, in the case of in-, denting schools, would cause a loss of revenue to school committees. •

The Board resolved that the chairman and executive should wait on the Minister for Education to convey the Board's protest.' "; . '*