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MARLBOROUGH. Sib,— Blenheim, 9th March, 1903. I have the honour to present the report of the Marlborough Education Board, for the year ending the 31st December, 1902. Board. —At the beginning of the year the Board was composed of the following persons : Messrs. J. C. Chaytor, John Duncan, Alfred G. Fell, Alfred J. Litchfield, Richard McCallum, W. H. Macey, W. B. Parker, J. H. Redwood, and A. P. Seymour. The members retiring by rotation were Messrs. Fell, Parker, and Redwood ; the first two were re-elected, and Mr. Charles Ferguson was chosen in the place of Mr. Joseph Redwood, who, to the regret of the Board, did not offer himself for re-election. Twelve meetings of the Board were held, and the average attendance at these meetings was 75. Schools. —The number of schools open at the end of the year 1901 was 62. Eight of these (all small aided schools) were closed, 4 temporarily, and 4 permanently ; and 6 were opened (or reopened) ; so that the total number of schools open at the end of the year was 60. The difficulty experienced in obtaining suitable teachers for these small and remote schools is the cause of the frequent changes in their number. Seventy per cent of the schools in this district are in the two lowest grades, nearly 42 per cent, being in grade 0, having an average attendance not exceeding eight. Attendances.—The mean average roll-number for the year under review was 2,054, and the mean average daily attendance, 1,745, or 85 per cent. This is the highest percentage for some years, and is 1 per cent, above the average for the colony for 1901. In 1900 it was 81-5, and in 1901 82-6, thus showing a steady increase during the past three years. No doubt this is, to a large extent, due to the exertions of the Truant Officers. The new scale of staffs and salaries has, after a year's trial, shown that like all human arrangements it is capable of considerable improvement. The following are some eases needing attention : (1.) The teacher.of a school having an average attendance of eight receives a salary of £40, while one more in average attendance would add £16 to the salary, or more than three times as much for one child as is paid per head for the other eight. (2.) The case of schools in 'grade 3 : the sole teacher of such a school may have as many as forty children distributed amongst seven or more classes and has certainly the hardest position of any teacher in the service, and considering the arduous nature of his or her duties, the most poorly paid. When such a school reaches forty-one it is entitled to an assistant at £80. School Districts. —On the petition of the inhabitants of the Rai Valley, the Board constituted that part of the Canvastown School District into a separate school district, thus bringing up the number of such districts to twenty-eight. Three of these however —namely, Endeavour Inlet, Deep Creek, and Port Underwood—have ceased to have more than a nominal existence. At the beginning of the year the Board amended its scale of payments to School Committees by fixing a sliding scale according to the grade in which the schools are respectively placed under the PublicSchool Teachers' Salaries Act; and the effect of the amendment is to slightly increase the grant to Committees in all the schools, except the largest, the allowances to which remain the same as before. The Board hopes to be able before long to still further increase the Committees' allowance, as they with one consent complain of its insufficiency. The most cordial relations continue to exist between the Board and the Committees, whose management of the business intrusted to them has been all that can be desired. Manual and Technical Instruction.—Up to the present time, no public interest has been evinced in the direction of manual and technical education in this district, such as has been shown in many other parts of the colony by the establishment of associated technical classes, either by independent associations or in conjunction with the Education Boards. Perhaps the almost entire absence of manufacturing industries in a community exclusively occupied in agricultural or pastoral pursuits may partly account for this apparent apathy. The Board has not as yet made any attempt to promote the movement in its primary schools, being of the opinion that until the adoption of the long-promised revision of the standard syllabus, which was announced in the Minister's last report as being " shortly to be gazetted," it would be injudicious to press upon its teachers the addition of anything whatever to the work demanded by the existing syllabus. Although no application has been made to the Department for assistance in promoting the objects of the Manual and Technical Instruction Act, yet means have been provided by the Board out of its ordinary revenue to enable such teachers as voluntarily elected to make a beginning in this direction by supplying them with the means of introducing plasticine modelling into their schools; and the supplies of kindergarten materials have been increased and distributed to such teachers as have included those methods of hand and eye training in their course of instruction. Judging from the Inspector's report for the past year, the results of the year's work in the ordinary subjects of the syllabus do not appear to have suffered by the introduction of this class of work, but rather the contrary ; and should the promised revision of the syllabus and the further simplification of the regulations under the Manual and Technical Instruction Act be accomplished, the Board may find it possible to avail itself of the provisions of the same without detriment to the ordinary work of the primary school. Buildings.—ln common with every education district in the colony, the Board finds it impossible to meet the urgent requirements of the district out of the building grant so parsimoniously provided by Parliament. The Minister says in his last annual report, "No one needs to be reminded that the neglect of ordinary maintenance considerably shortens the lifetime of any building. If less is spent on maintenance, more will have to be spent on rebuilding " ; but it would appear that the attention of Parliament needs very much to be directed to this self-evident truth, and the Board hopes that the Minister will bring the matter very earnestly and strenously before the next session, and place on the estimates a sum amply sufficient to prevent the otherwise inevitable premature decay of all the school buildings in the country. Seeing how general is the complaint of insufficient building grants throughout the colony, and that the members representing

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