5

E.—3

Senior free places are provided for boys in the form of industrial scholarships, which enable the holders to be apprenticed to suitable trades, but recently very few applications have been received for the scholarships, and at the end of 1919 no industrial scholarships were current. Senior free places for girls take the form of nursing-scholarships. At the end of 1919 one girl was in training as a day pupil and one as a probationer on the staff of two different hospitals. Staffs and Salaries. The staffs of Native village schools in December, 1919, included seventy-three male and forty-four female head or sole teachers and 122 assistants. The average salary of male head, or sole teachers was £274 18s. 7d., of female head or sole teachers £218 17s. 3d., and of both combined £253 13s. 3d. These figures do not include the value of residences or house allowance provided in every case. The averages show an increase of £62 18s., £54 lis. Bd., and £59 6s. respectively over the corresponding salaries in 1918, the large increases of 30 per cent, and over being due to the amended scale of salaries adopted in 1919. The average salary of the 115 female assistants was £115 15s. Bd., and of the seven male assistants £115, as compared with £89 lis. Id. and £81 17s. 6d. respectively in 1918. The total expenditure on Native school teachers' salaries and allowances for the year ended 31st March, 1920, was £46,032, as compared with £37,285 (including war bonus) in 1918 and £29,148 for a practically similar staff in 1914. As will be observed, the expenditure on salaries since 1914 has increased by 58 per cent. Expenditure. The total net expenditure on Native schools during the year ended the 31st March, 1920, was £59,166. The chief items of expenditure were teachers' salaries and allowances, £46,032 ; new buildings and additions, £2,885 ; maintenance of buildings, repairs, &c, £2,975 ; secondary education, £3,524 ; books and school requisites, £1,075.

No. 2. REPORT OP THE SENIOR INSPECTOR OF NATIVE SCHOOLS. Sir,— I have the honour to submit the following report upon the work of Native village schools, Native mission schools, and the Maori secondary schools : — New Schools, etc. At the close of the year 1918 there were 119 Native village schools in operation. Two schools which had been temporarily closed— Pamoana, Wanganui River, and Taemaro, Mangonui district — were reopened in the early part of 1919. The public school at Motatau, Bay of Islands, began work as a Native school during the year. Taliaroa Native School, Kawhia, owing to the Department's inability to obtain the services of a suitable teacher, remained closed during the year, and Rakaunui School, Kawhia, was temporarily closed towards the end of the year. (Arrangements have now been made to reopen Taharoa and Rakaunui early during the current year.) Waimahana School, Hot Lakes district, which was conducted as a part-time school in connection with Waiotapu, was also closed. Arrangements have been made, however, to open Waimahana as a full-time school when the buildings in the course of erection arc completed. The Native school at Whakarapa, Hokianga, from which practically the whole of the children had been withdrawn for the purpose of attending a Roman Catholic Convent school which had been established close by, was closed during the year. This school (one of the Department's best Native schools), with an attendance of upwards of eighty children, had been in existence for very many years, and it is to be regretted that a school which was doing such excellent work should meet such an untimely fate. There were thus 119 schools in operation at the end of the year 1919.