The Taranaki Herald. (DAILY EVENING) SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 1912. COST OF EDUCATION.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LX, Issue 143771, 20 April 1912, Page 2

The Taranaki Herald. (DAILY EVENING) SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 1912. COST OF EDUCATION.

In the minds of many people the education system of New Zealand is sacrosanct; to suggest ever so mildly that it is imperfect and too costly is regarded as rank heresy, while the vigorous critic lays himself open to denunciation as an enemy of education who wishes to keep the masses in ignorance and subjection. Nevertheless it is just as well that the taxpayers should know what the system is costing them, and ask themselves whether they are getting an adequate return. The actual public expenditure on education for the year ended March 31, 1911, was £1,232,000, of which £1,083,000 was voted out of the public funds and £149,000 waS derived from rents of reserves. This huge sum, of course, does not nearly represent the real cost of the system, for there is no reckoning taken of the interest on loan money spent in the p\iat nor of the value of the school sites. In addition there is the cost of books, etc., which has to be borne by the individual. If all these items were added together it would be found that the public education system of the Dominion is costing fully £1 10s per head of the population every year. And then the whole educational bill will not be covered, for there is the cost of carrying children on the railways and numerous other items, besides the cost of many schools which are not maintained at the public expense, such as denominational and private schools. Thus it will be seen that the people of the Dominion are paying a very heavy Bill indeed for education. Even if they can well afford it—and we do not say they cannot—it is essential that they should get results commensurate with the cost. But do they? That is open to question. Let us compare the cost with what is spent in Australia. In New Zealand the expenditure per head of population on primary education (including Native schools and training colleges) during 1910-11 was 17s 6d, while in New South Wales in 1909, the latest returns we have at hand, it was 13s sd. In both cases the figures include the rest of erecting and maintaining schools, together with the cost of their administration. In Victoria the expenditure per head was 10s Id, in Queensland 11s 7d, in West Australia 11s OJd, in South Australia 7s Bd, and in Tasmania 7s lid. In the case of these States the figures are exclusive of cost of erecting and repairing schools. If this item were deducted from the New Zealand figures the cost would be reduced to 14s lid, which is still greatly in excess of the Australian figures. Are the results so much better in N ew Zealand, or any better at all than in the Australian States ? If not, why is the cost so much greater?. ' We do not think the

educational standard of tie D(fjninion differs materially from that of New South Wales and Victoria, yet we pay from thirty to fifty per cent, more for it. In New South Wales there are 3070 primary schools provided for 160,080 children in average daily attendance, or, roughly, a school for every 52 children. In New Zealand there are 2096 primary schools with an average daily attendance of 135,738 children, or a schqol for every 63 children; so that the excessive cost in this Dominion cannot ,be attributed to the scattered population and the necessity of providing a large number of small schools. In Victoria the average attendance per school is about 72, rather greater than in New Zealand, but the cost per head of population is nearly fifty per cent, greater in this Dominion—l4s lid as against 10s Id. It cannot be pretended that we give a fifty per cent, better education for the money. It occurs to us that there is a great waste of effort in our system. For instance, a considerable proportion of the primary school children are passed on to free places in the secondary schools, where for a year or two the5 r take up subjects of which they cannot possibly learn sufficient to be of any use to them. Thus the time of the secondary school teachers is wasted; and it may be that there is a similar waste in the primary schools. Indeed we are sure there is, for the syllabus is overloaded with subjects, the teaching of which is absolutely thrown away in the case of four children out of five. The most disquieting feature about the system is that the duty of carrying it out is every year getting more and more completely into .the hands of its own product. The teachers, and even the inspectors and higher administrative officers, havp been largely trained under the system, arid naturally in most cases have complete faith in it and are blind to its imperfections, for its tendency is to destroy originality both in thought and practice.