THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1931. AN ECONOMY IN EDUCATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20986, 24 September 1931, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1931. AN ECONOMY IN EDUCATION.

In seeking ways of reducing public expenditure, at a time demanding that every avenue of possible economy should be explored, it is inevitable that the outlay on education be considered. That there is a reluctance to face this necessity is not surprising. No one likes the thought of parsimony in connection with benefits to be conferred on the rising generation. But this particular departmental vote is no more sacrosanct than that of defence, on which restricting hands have been laid without hesitation. Nor is the compulsion to be countered with any indefinite argument about being penny wise and pound foolish. If pounds are hard to get, it is dangerous to be penny foolish. When Sir Harry Atkinson presented his Financial Statement after the 1887 elections, he had reason to say "Our chief difficulties have undoubtedly arisen in a great measure from a toolavish expenditure, more especially of borrowed money: that must be stopped, and our first duty therefore is to apply the pruning knife with an unsparing hand." He added, with regard to the education system, that whjle from the purely educational point of view it had given great satisfaction specialists agreed that "relatively to population and revenue it is too costly." Such a dictum is bound to be unpopular, as he found, but that does not prove it to be unwise. In advancing sug gestions for curtailment of the education vote, he proposed the nonpayment of capitation in respect of children under six years of age, and intimated his Government's intention of accomplishing this purpose by using its power to make regulations. Education Boards resisted the suggestion as an embarrassment of their finance and an illegal traversing of the obvious meaning of the Education Act in defining the free school age as between five and fifteen. The point was never settled. That part of the Order-in-Council was withdrawn. The time has now come, however, when the question so raised is worth reconsideration, with a view to statutory raising of the school age of entry.

A closely relevant precedent is provided by the action of the Hall Government in 1880, when it was decided to pay capitation only on the attendance of children of the ages set down in the Act. Large numbers of children under five years of age were in attendance at public schools, and for them capitation had been regularly claimed and granted. This was a financial help to the boards, as the cost of conducting infant classes in the cities was considerably below the capitation allowance on these classes, while even in the country districts the boards' funds were swelled by this income. The Government of that year made the deductions, however, and they worked out at about lli per cent, of the former "income of the boards, thus saving the Government about £40,000. Methods of finance have altered since then, capitation being payable only in connection with certain educational activities, and the pi*ecise saving to be effected now by raising the age of entry to six, for a year, is not so readily capable of statement. But a few figures of general import suggest that a considerable saving can be achieved in this way. The total cost of primary education in the last year for which detailed figures are available, that ending in March of 1930, was approximately £2,600,000, apart from the amount chargeable to general administration costs. In that year 9 per cent, of the pupils in the public primary schools were between the ages of five and six. It is not possible to say, in the absence of complete data, what was the actual cost of educating that 9 per cent. ; urban and rural conditions, occasioning widely different results from the inclusion of a number of pupils so young, diversely affect the calculation, in any case. Still, it is apparent that an appreciable saving would result from the temporary exclusion of them from the cost to the State. Expert report on the financial aspect of the suggestion would be advisable. At different times there have been different reasons for the mounting cost of education. Lavish expenditure on buildings has been one ; for the first time in forty years there was in 1927 a downward turn in the total cost, and this was achieved by a deferring of construction. Many years ago there was discovered a regrettable leakage and waste when the scheme of universal free education in secondary schools had been introduced ; financially viewed, the scheme was vitiated by the leaving of pupils long before they had got a commensurate benefit from the provision. The plain fact is that education can be too costly, and scrupulous care is always necessary to see that the limits of economical expenditure are not overstepped, while in times like the present special economies ought to be imposed. The suggestion now made would not involve any serious economic dislocation—as would that of a reduction of the "free and compulsory" period by an earlier exit. Deferring entry for a year, as a temporary measure, would not entail, in most cases, any ultimate loss of educational equipment in the pupils concerned. From the point of view of the State, there must be a limit, "fore and aft," to its responsibility for education—a process that in the individual usually occupies a whole lifetime and is then far from completion. The ages at which the State should grasp and relinquish the child, for the purpose of imparting education, are for experts in education to debate; the necessity to curtail public expenditure on this task is for Governments to acknowledge at a time of financial stringency. To raise the age of "free" entry from five to six, associated possibly with the lowering of "compulsory" attendance from seven to six, should be of service in the existing stress.