E.—2f.

[Appendix A.

from Dunedin, have had few facilities for improving their educational status. It is quite certain'that the classes have been appreciated by the teachers concerned. Finance. —A statement of the Board's income and expenditure for the year is appended. The following statement shows the sums expended under the various headings during the past three years : Teachers' salaries and lodging-allowances—l9lo, £75,554 13s. 7d. ; 1911, £78,048 10s. sd. : 1912, £81,484 2s. Id. Payments to School Committees for incidental expenses—l9lo, £5,416 14s. 9d. : 1911, £6,220 12s. 5d.; 1912, £6,179 16s. Id. Erection, enlargement, and improvement of school buildings, purchase of sites, house allowances, manual and technical buildings and apparatus —1910, £15,576 Is. 6d. ; 1911, £16,302 13s. 2d. ; 1912, £18,243 Is. 6d. The receipts for school buildings include grant for maintenance, £12,426 ; special grants for neyv buildings, £4,561 Is. 6d. ; house allowances to teachers, £948 2s. 3d. ; rents, £20 lis. ; local contributions, £417 3s. 7d. ; deposits on contracts, £380 14s. 6d. ; special grants for technical-school buildings, and furniture, fittings, &c., for same, £4,256 9s. 6d. : total, £23,010 2s. 4d. The main items of expenditure on buildings were : General maintenance (repairs, alterations, and small additions). £10,028 2s. 9d. ; rebuilding, £680 10s. : new buildings, £5,048 4s. 9d. : house allowances. £945 12s. 3d. ; manual and technical purposes, £5,794 9s. 2d. ; rents of buildings, &c, £18 lis. ; refund of contractors' deposits. £310 18s. 6d. At the end of the year the Board's Building Account was in credit to the amount of £539 7s. Bd. Drill and Physical Exercises. —Due attention has been given to trie requirements of the Act in respect of the teaching of military drill and physical exercises (including breathing-exercises). Believing, as it does, that physical instruction should be regarded as an essential part of the curriculum for primary schools, the Board is in accord with the Government in its intention to extend this instruction throughout the Dominion. For the past twenty-nine years the Board has employed a very competent gymnastic instructor to train the Normal School students, and for the past twelve years systematic, and what it believes to be most beneficial, physical exercises have been introduced into the schools of this district, and practised daily. These exercises have been altered from time to time as improvements suggested themselves, and for tin- pas! six years have included suitable breathingexercises. Pupil-teachers and probationers attend in Dunedin every Saturday throughout the year for training in the prescribed course of physical instruction. In view of the attention that has been given to the subject in this district, the Board assumed that when the Department was prepared to introduce a Dominion scheme inquiry would have been made as to the degree of efficiency attained before superseding or altering the system now in vogue in Otago. The Board's disappointment that this course was not adopted by the Department will not. however, prevent it from attentively considering tue merits of the proposed new system, and. if possible, giving it cordial support. Buildings.- —The calls upon the Board for the maintenance and improvement of school buildings throughout the district have been very numerous and costly. It had. in addition, to expend nearly £1,500 for the acquisition of land to extend school grounds seriously restricted in area, and for the erection and equipment of workshop. Owing to these causes, and the greatly increased cost of all building-yvork, the Board has not felt warranted in setting aside for the rebuilding of worn-out schools any portion of its annual grant for maintenance. The hope is expressed that the grants formerly made for providing bathrooms and yvashhouses for teachers' residences, and which, owing to financial stringency, have been stopped for some time, will shortly be resumed, so as to enable the Board to effect urgently needed additions to the comfort and convenience of a number of teachers. The following is a general summary of the building operations carried out during the year: New schools erected, 2: schools added to, 7 ; residences added to, 2 : schools and residences repaired, 8 ; furniture of schools improved, 6 ; shelter-sheds erected, 9 ; septic tanks constructed, 1 : school-porches erected, 2 ; technical-school buildings erected, 5 ; large schools painted outside. -1 : schools and residences painted inside, 26 ; residences provided with domestic conveniences (washhouses, tubs, boilers, baths, &c), 20. Almost the whole of the additions, repairs, reuovations. and painting have been carried out by the Board's oyvn staff of workmen, of whom about thirty have been continuously employed throughout the year. Truancy. —Eight hundred and eighty-six notices were posted to or served on parents and guardians for infringements of section 153 of the Education Act ; sixteen notices were served on parents whose children were not on the roll of any school : 243 cases of irregular attendance were investigated : fifty-two penalty summonses were issued under section 153. Under the above fifty-two summonses, forty-eight convictions were obtained. Two cases were withdrawn owing to the production of medical certificates, and in two other cases the children were committed to the industrial school. The total fines inflicted for the year amounted to £11 7s. When the schools resumed after last Christinas vacation, returns received from the head teachers of the twenty-four schools in Dunedin and suburbs showed that 268 children in Standards 111, IV, and V had not returned to the schools they were attending in the previous December. From investigations made by the Truant Officer it was found that of these, 177 had been transferred to other schools and ninety-one had left school. Of these ninety-one whose primary-school course was thus terminated, ten left at the end of their Standard 111 course, thirty-two left at the end of their Standard IV course, and forty-nine left at the end of their Standard V course. Stated in percentages, the leakages of pupils belonging to the schools dealt with was: Between Standards HI and IV, 11 per cent.; between Standards IV and V, 35 per cent. ; and between Standards V and VI. 54 per cent. Tn all the cases under review the children withdrayvn had reached the exemption age. Training College. —During the year 106 students were in attendance, thirty-eight being males and sixty-eight females. Of these, sixty-two were from Otago, twenty-eight from Southland, thirteen from South Canterbury, two from Hawke's Bay, and one from Wellington. Eighty-six of them had been either pupil-teachers or probationers. The allowances paid to them or on their behalf were : Bursaries, lodging-allowances, and travelling-expenses, £4,986 16s. 7d. ; College fees, £864 3s. : total,

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