EDUCATION COSTS.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 September 1931, Page 11

EDUCATION COSTS.

VARIATION OF FIGURES. INVESTIGATION TO BE MADE. The question of whether the Education Boards or the Department were responsible for the rising cost of education in New Zealand was asked by Mr. S. R. Evison at a meeting of the Canterbury Education Board last week. Mr. Evison said that the Minister of Finance, in his Budget, had set down expenditure for education as something over £4,500,000, which was inclusive of debt charges on loan expenditure. The Minister of Education,-in his report, had ignored the debt charges and given the total as £4,174,855; and from this he had deducted £501,344 spent on buildings, arriving at the net amount of £3,-673,511, on which he based the cost of education at £2 os. 3d. a head. Seventenths of this amount went on salaries. If the larger sum, including debt charges and money spent on buildings, was considered, the cost worked out actually at £3 os. 2d. a head. A peculiarity of the Minister’s report was the tendency to vary the figures under the same heads in different parts of the report, the speaker continued. The most glaring instance was found on comparing the cost of education as given in the introduction, where the total appeared as £4,174,855, with the summary on the last page of the report, where it was shown as £4,101,933. The speaker proceeded to quote instances from the report. The funds set apart for fuel, lighting and other incidental expenses were inadequate when times were good. The board had not sufficiently stressed that the withdrawal of maintenance grants must have a disastrous effect on the primary schools where the school committees’ incidental grants had never been sufficient to pay committees the cost of fuel and labour. Besides the withdrawal of maintenance funds following upon inadequate incidentals grants, school committees had to submit to a withdrawal of the subsidies on the money raised by their own efforts. Was the present cost of education greater than the New Zealand taxpayer could afford? asked Mr., Evison. For the year 1930-31 the cost of elementary education was £l3 a child, and the cost of secondary education was £2O 15s. 9d. a child. Over the last ten years the average costs were £l2 16s. Id. and £25 Is. lOd. During that time attendances had increased, and it was a question whether or not the present-day cost of education was fully accounted for by the growth of the school population and by developments of policy as approved by Parliament. If the cost of education were considered to be too high, then it was clear that something like a reversal of policy would be necessary before substantial economies could be effected. If the expenditure were not considered too high, then the administration by the Minister and the Department was at fault, and boards did not §ome into the picture. The question of whether the blame was attributable to the administration was undoubtedly one upon which boards should be qualified to speak after, of course, having given the matter careful consideration. The speaker was sur- | prised that boards had not taken the ’ trouble to reclare their views in a manner calculated to carry conviction to the interested observer. “We are sometimes told that the Atmore report is dead,” said Mr. Evison. “I am not of that opinion. It seems to me more reasonable to suppose that the department is endeavouring to ascertain where the reorganised scheme I of primary and post-primary education can be utilised without increasing expenditure and in order to effect economy.” There seemed to be a serious loss of time in getting to grips with the problem, said the speaker, but it was stated on good authority that the ■ department was now busy preparing rc- | ports for the Minister according to the I demands of Parliament. The speaker | suggested that members should get | ready to discuss the question and offer ■ suggestions as to where economies could be effected. | Members said that they were not prepared to discuss the subject without having studied the report. A cub-com-mittee was appointed to report to the next meeting of the board.