EDUCATION ECONOMIES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21598, 19 March 1932, Page 5

EDUCATION ECONOMIES

ABOLITION OF BOARDS OPPOSED (Per United Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, March 18. The Canterbury Education Board today passed a resolution emphatically protesting against the proposed abolition of education boards and the centralisation of control in Wellington. The chairman (Mr G. W. Armitage) said that economy could be effected without rending and breaking down everything as the report proposed. The centralisation proposal would give back control to the very people who were responsible for the past extravagance, and who were primarily responsible for the present state of affairs. The board agreed with some of the commission’s most important recommendations, such as the closing of the training colleges and a reduction of women teachers’ salaries to the ratio of fourfifths of the men’s, but objected to such other proposals as a further reduction of school committees’ allowances and changes in the system of agricultural instruction. It was stated by more than one member that the section of the report dealing with economies in education had been inspired by the Education Department and adopted by the commission without a proper examination. The board also approved of the raising of the admission age and the proposals for economy in post-primary education. In support of the objection to the commission’s comments on the cost of boards’ administration, and especially to a comparison of costs in different countries, it was stated that of the total cost of 9s 2d per pupil in New Zealand, nine boards’ share was 5s Id and the department’s 4s Id. h.