AN ANOMALY.

Southland Times, Issue 17619, 6 April 1914, Page 4

AN ANOMALY.

The Chairman of the Education Board has undoubtedly exposed a weakness in the system of administering education in directing attention to the inability of all Hoards to make equal allowances to school committees. A little study of the figures must convince anyone that the system works out unfairly, and that boards, such as the Southland Board. which have a large number of small schools in their care .are seriously handicapped, t nder the system in operation each board receives a sum of ilti.iO, and in addition capitation at the rate of 12s per head for each pupil in average attendance. Out of this amount office salaries and the expenses of administration have to be met, and the allowances have to be provided for school committees. The payment of capitation allowances on the average attendance seems at first sight to he fair enough, but in practice it is far from equitable. This may best he shown by examples. In Hawke's Bay and in Southland the average attendance at the schools is about, the same. To be precise, the figures for Hawke's Bay are 0721 and for Southland 0557. But the Hawke's Hay Hoard has to provide for only 12.7 schools, while the Southland Hoard has ISO, so that on the same capitation the Hawke's Bay Board is able to make a much more substantial allowance to each school committee than the Southland Hoard. The amount paid to school committees in Hawke's Hay according to last year’s Education Report was 6s Sd per pupil in average attendance, while in Southland the amount was 7s lOd. The average rates throughout, the dominion vary from Is £d in the Marlborough district to Ts 2%d in the North Canterbury district. Statutory provision makes the legal minimum in any district 5s 6d. hut in some districts the minimum cannot be maintained, while in others it is far exceeded. It is obvious that the system makes no allowance for varying conditions. and the Board which has a large number of pupils in average attendance. and a limited number of schools is much better off than the Board which has an equal average attendance distributed over a larger number of schools. What is required is a dominion scale of payments to school committees. so that under any circumstances the committees of schools with an average attendance of 100 will receive the same payments in whatever part of the dominion they may be. Under the present system districts in which there are a large number of small schools are hampered in their finance, and the difficulties of the committees are greatly increased. The matter is one to which the School Committees’ Association might profitably devote attention. The system is clearly defective, and as amendments to the Education Act are under consideration the time is opportune for laying the facts before the Minister, and urging the necessity of redress.