E.—l.

with 174 women and 47 men for the corresponding period of last year. It is gratifying, in view of the dearth of male teachers in the colony, to notice that the proportion of male teachers to women teachers has risen from 27 to 34 per cent. The amount paid during 1906 for the training of teachers was £33,747, made up as follows : Salaries of staffs of four training colleges, £11,006 ; students' allowances and University fees, £11,032; grants for special instruction in handwork, £2,415; railway fares of teachers in training, £4,307; alterations to buildings, Wellington, £4,787 ; apparatus, furniture, &c, Auckland, £200. It must be remembered, however, that £22,038 of this total provides not only for the efficient training of over two hundred teachers, but the instruction of over sixteen hundred children in attendance at the practising schools. The reports of the several training colleges are printed in a separate paper, E.-lc School Buildings. The vote for maintenance of school buildings, which was charged entirely to the Consolidated Fund, was distributed, as in the previous year, in accordance with the report of the Select Committee on Education set up by the House of Representatives in the session of 1903 —namely, as follows : — (a.) The basis for the distribution of the amounts available for the ordinary repair and maintenance of schools and residences (including replacement of wornout buildings) was the present current cost of the construction of such buildings, estimated to be £1,366,250 (£1,229,100 for wooden buildings and £137,150 for those of brick or stone). (b.) The grants to Boards included an allowance for maintenance of wooden buildings—schools and residences—at the rate of 3 per cent, of the cost of construction ; for maintenance of brick or stone buildings, 2 per cent. ; for replacing wornout wooden school buildings, 2, 5, or 10 per cent., according to age of buildings— twenty to twenty-five years, twenty-five to thirty years, or over thirty years, as the case might be ; no allowance was made for the replacement of worn-out residences. It is thus shown that the grants made for replacing worn-out wooden buildings (exclusive of residences) assume an average age for such buildings of thirty-six and a half years, or rather less than the duration shown by returns made by the Boards three years ago. The difference is in favour of the Boards, for in the computation adopted, by the time a school is thirty-six and a half years old, a Board will have received an amount for rebuilding it equal to the whole cost of its replacement. The actual distribution of the vote for maintenance of school buildings was as follows : For maintenance and replacement —Auckland, £11,990 ; Taranaki, £2,055 ; Wanganui, £4,338 ; Wellington, £4,893 ; Hawke's Bay, £3,280 ; Marlborough, £848 ; Nelson, £2,978 ; Grey, £962 ; Westland, £1,022 ; North Canterbury, £8,216 ; South Canterbury, £2,556; Otago, £9,087 ; Southland, £4,459 : total, £56,684. For rents : Auckland, £233 6s. lOd. ; Taranaki, £12; Wanganui, £26 ss. ; Wellington, £370 16s. 6d. ; Hawke's Bay, £88 3s. 4d. ; Nelson, £25 Is. ; Otago, £13 6s. ; Southland, £15 9s. sd. : total, £784 Bs. Id. For the purpose of replacing schools or school property damaged or destroyed by fire, £500 was paid to Auckland, £308 10s. to Taranaki, £610 18s. to Wanganui, £6,426 Is. 6d. to Wellington, £5,116 ss. to Hawke's Bay, £241 os. 6d. to Nelson, £867 2s. 6d. to North Canterbury, £517 ss. to Otago; total, £14,587 2s. 6d. The basis of the payments for the reinstatement of buildings destroyed by fire was —for buildings not over twenty years old, the full cost at present current rates ; and for other buildings the same, less the amount which the Government is presumed to have paid towards their rebuilding (included in ordinary grants for maintenance and replacement as explained above). Special grants for additions to schools, rendered necessary by increased attendance and for new school buildings, were made as follows :— Additions. —Auckland, £7,746 os. 2d. ; Taranaki, £848 Bs. 6d. ; Wanganui, £2,456 3s. sd. ; Wellington, £2,864 ; Hawke's Bay, £598 ; Nelson, £393 ss. 7d. ;

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