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Teaching Staff. —In Return No. 7* will be found a list of the teachers in the service of the Board, with their classification, position, salaries, &c. Pupil-teachers.—This is probably the weakest part of the service. There is great difficulty in obtaining suitable candidates, but more especially males. To induce such candidates to come forward the Board amended the regulations under which pupil-teachers are engaged, considerably increasing the salary of the various stages; but up to the present the beneficial results expected have not been realized. Scholarships.—Of the scholarships granted in 1881 four are still held as follows : Herbert Huggins, £25 ; Arthur R. Meek, £25; Graham Pringle, £30; and A. J. McCredie, £20. The scholarships competed for in 1882 were won as follows: Martin Luckie, £30; Hamilton Bannister, £20; Herbert Mowbray, £30; William Denton, £20; Albert Tattle, £15; Donald Clark, £15; Joseph A. Tripe, £10; and Frederick Hill, £30. At the examination which was held in December 46 candidates presented themselves. Of these, 35 obtained 50 per cent, of the maximum number of marks. Eight Wellington and two country candidates obtained the 75 per cent, required to win the scholarships. Office Staff. —Return No. 9f contains the names, position, and salaries of the office staff and of the Normal School. In August the Board resolved to separate the office of Inspector and Secretary held by the Inspector, Mr. Lee. Mr. Dorset, who had been acting as clerk, was appointed Secretary; this change has been effected at the small additional sum of £50 per annum. Attendance.—From Return No. 1J it will be seen that the numbers on the rolls show a steady increase, being 5,510 at the beginning and 6,271 at the end of the year; this number, however, falls far short of the number of children of school age in this district. The average attendance at the majority of our schools is very unsatisfactory. There seems to be great apathy and little appreciation on the part of too many parents of the value of regular attendance. The inspection returns point to grave shortcomings, and will have to be seriously considered. An expensive system has been established, yet many children do not attend at all, while the attendance of great numbers on the books is of such an intermittent nature as to make the imparting of anything but the most rudimentary education next to impossible. This is clearly brought out in the report of the Boards Inspector, from which it will be seen that of the total number on the schoolrolls only one-half or thereabouts came up for examination. A scrutiny of the table of results will show that, as a basis on which to form an opinion of the quality of the work done by any of our schools, it is practically worthless. As an example of this take Whiteman^s Valley School: the percentage of passes is 100, the highest obtainable. We have here a small school with 29 on the books; 25 were present at the examination, 17 of whom were over 8 years of age. Of this number 4 only were presented for examination in standard work, and 4 passed; and in this way 100 per cent, is noted as passed. It must be manifest that such returns do not exhibit the state of the schools. It seems that power to deal with irregular attendance is more urgently required than was suspected. Compulsory Clauses. —The compulsory clauses have been brought into operation by the Committees of the Masterton, Tawa Flat, Fernridge, Johnsonville, Newtown, Mount Cook, Tenui, Greytown, Mauriceville, Clareville, Carterton, Kaiwaiwai, Kaitoki, Hutt, Ohariu, Thorndon, and Terrace School Districts, with varying results. The Committees, however, have no power under the Act to deal with irregular attendance. As before noticed, this is a question of great importance; it will be a question for the Legislature whether in the first amending Bill power should be taken to supplement the compulsory clauses by an attendance clause. Normal School. —The report of the Principal of the Normal School, herewith attached, furnishes a detailed statement of the year's work. The Board, while iully recognizing the ability and devotion of Mr. Howard and Mrs. Griffin to the work of the Normal School, and the satisfactory results of the examination of the students, feels that the amount expended in training the few students on the present basis is scarcely defensible : 18 professional students, mostly females, entail an annual expenditure exceeding £1,500, the probability being that a few years hence not one of these young ladies will be in the service of the Board. The present building is unsuitable, a properly organized practising school being impossible under existing conditions. As a new school is urgently required and will shortly have to be erected in the Oriental Bay district, it could be planned and organized to include a training and practising school for teachers, on a more practical basis than the present one, insuring a year's training in the course of the apprenticeship to every pupil-teacher in the service of the Board. I have, &c, J. R. Blaik, Chairman. The Hon. the Minister of Education.

* Appendix, page 19. t Appendix, page 6, % Appendix, page 47.