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REPORT. Contents. This report, with its appendices, gives the information which is of general public interest with regard to the administration of the Education Act, 1908, the Education Amendment Acts, 1908 and 1910, and the Education Eeserves Acts, 1908 and 1910, the expenditure of public funds appropriated by Parliament for educational purposes, and the principal statistics relating to matters which are more fully dealt with in separate papers, as follows: — E.-2. Primary Education ; with appendices, namely, — Appendix A. Eeports of Education Boards ; Appendix B. Eeports of the Land Boards on the Administration of the Education Estate. Appendix C. Eeports of Inspectors ; Appendix D. Training of Teachers ; Appendix E. List of Public Schools and Teachers, with certain Details of Expenditure. E.-3. Native Schools. E.-4. Special Schools and Infant-life Protection. E.-5. Manual and Technical Instruction. E.-6. Secondary Education. E.-7. Higher Education. E.-8. Annual Examinations. E.-9. Teachers' Superannuation. E.-9a. Actuary's Eeport on Teachers' Superannuation Fund. E.-10. Public Libraries. E.--11. Junior Cadets. E.-12. Education Commission. In this report summaries are made of the more important tables appearing in the separate papers above mentioned. These summaries are numbered with the letters from the alphabet from A to N, and the tables from which they were prepared will be found in the separate paper concerned, numbered Al, A 2, 81, 82, &c. Where information in any section of this report has been prepared from tables appearing in the other reports above named, a reference will be found under the heading of the section to the table concerned and the report in which it is printed. PRIMARY EDUCATION. Number of Public Schools. (E.-2.—Table Al.) The number of public schools open at the end of 1911 was 2,166, as against 2,096 for the year 1910, an increase of 70. In Table A the schools are classified according to the. yearly average attendance. In a number of cases schools maintained in grades under Schedule A of clause 2 of the staffs and salaries regulations are included in this table in such grades, although the average attendance of these schools respectively for 1911 was below the minimum of the grades as indicated in Table A. The classification is in accordance with the provisions of the Education Amendment Act, 1908, which came into operation on the Ist January, 1909. The number of small schools with an average attendance not exceeding 15 has increased since 1910 from 527 to 555. There has likewise been a marked increase in schools with an average attendance of 16 to 80 —1,225 as compared with 1,196, Of schools with an average attendance of over 80 the number has also increased by 13 —386 as against 373. It will thus be seen that the increase in attendance has been general throughout all grades of schools, a fact commented upon in the section dealing with attendance in the primary schools.