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Ptjture Payments to Boards. As already stated, there is reason to believe that in some instances the returns of average attendance hitherto received can be regarded as only approximately correct. But care has been taken to secure in future complete and reliable information respecting the school attendance, and the Boards have been informed that hereafter their monthly grants, for each period of three months beginning on the Ist of July, October, January, and April respectively, will be made strictly according to the actually-ascertained average daily attendance for the quarter immediately preceding. School Buildings. The Education Boards' returns show a total expenditure of £82,322 7s. lOd. on school buildings during the year 1877. The special vote of £50,000 for school buildings, passed by the General Assembly last session, has since been distributed among the different Boards. It was found necessary to exceed the amount voted by £1,950, as shown in the abstract of accounts hereunto appended. The effect of the passing of the Education Act has been to add largely to the attendance at schools already established, and to increase the demand for new schools. Strong representations have accordingly been made by Boards as to their pressing wants in respect of school buildings. The Otago Board reports as follows : "The introduction of free education in the elementary schools has been followed by a very great increase in the attendance at all schools in towns and larger villages. In Dunedin, for example, every available room is crowded to excess, and yet great numbers of applicants for admission have had to be turned from the public schools' doors. An effort has been made to meet the pressure temporarily by leasing rooms or halls in the neighbourhood of, and carrying them on in connection with, the present schools. But the provision thus made is both inadequate and unsatisfactory, and nothing short of a large extension" of the present schools, and the addition of one or two new ones, can meet the urgent wants of the city. In all the larger towns and villages the state of circumstances as regards increase of attendance and insufficiency of accommodation is more or less the same, and the temporary leasing of halls has had to be resorted to." Education Reserves. The awards of the arbitrators appointed under " The Education Reserves Act, 1877," to apportion the education reserves for the purposes of primary and secondary education, have been published in full in the New Zealand Gazette, with the exception of the Auckland award, which has not yet been received. A list of the School Commissioners, in whom the reserves are now vested, is hereunto appended. School Savings Banks. With a view to aid and encourage Education Boards and School Committees to establish School Savings Banks, Government have directed that a supply of bank pass books, account books, and other papers should be furnished to Boards for the use of the schools. These are now in course of preparation, and will shortly be issued. Teachers' Pension and Widow and Orphan Pund. The Government have had under consideration the advisability of encouraging and assisting the teachers employed in the public schools to make provision for themselves on their retirement from active duty, and for their widows and orphan children, and have accordingly instructed the Actuary of the Government Insurance Department to submit for consideration a scheme calculated to secure these desirable objects. The Actuary, with a view to obtain the information necessary to the working out of a scheme of the kind proposed, has prepared forms of returns to be filled up by the teachers who would come under it. These forms, with instructions for filling them up, have been forwarded to all the teachers of both sexes, and the returns are now coming in. 3— ll. 1.