COST OF EDUCATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19838, 7 January 1928, Page 11

COST OF EDUCATION.

TOTAL NEARLY £4,000,000. INCREASE IN RECENT YEARS. The cost of education in New Zealand during the financial year which ended on March 31 last was £3,910,241. The Year Book for 1928 supplies a series of comparative figures showing the increase in the cost of education since the beginning of the present century. In 1899 the expenditure was £519,000, or 13s 4d per head of population; and in 1914, £1,301,000, or 23s Id per head. In 1920 it had risen to £2,544,000, or 42s 2d per head. The details for the past five years are:— Expenditure. Per head. £ 8 d. 1923 ki i i v 3.187.000 48 7. 1924 .. 8,247,000 48 R 1925 ... 8,643.000 63 •/ 1926 »« .. 3,814,000 54 1(1 1927 k» 3,910,000 55 3. "The exceptionally marked increase of recent years in the total cost of education," comments the review, "is in a large measure due to the increase in the numbers receiving instruction, this being particularly marked in the case of postprimary schools. In the last decade the school population has increased by 22 per cent. Combined with this factor, rendering increased expenditure inevitable, the purchasing power of money has, of course, decreased enormously since prewar days, so that much of the increase in cost is more apparent than real."