1.

one central school, and these schools serve to show that consolidation is the most important factor in improving rural education in this country. This is no new and untried experiment, for such schools have been in operation in parts of the United States for nearly sixty years, and they have become so successful that the consolidated school now forms an integral part of the school system throughout the United States and Canada. So convinced are educationists in these countries of the value and feasibility of consolidation that small rural schools are being closed by the hundred every year and their places taken by well-equipped modern consolidated schools. There is no comparison between the training provided in the small isolated sole-teacher school and that in a larger school with a numerous staff and wider curriculum. The consolidated school must, however, be introduced gradually. The transport problem in New Zealand is more difficult than in America. School buses are double and petrol treble the cost in America, roads are more primitive, and population more scattered. Again, the Government cannot scrap useful buildings, nor can it in a few years find the cost of providing new central-school buildings to replace them. The policy is therefore to confine consolidation schemes to places where the establishment of a new school or the rebuilding of an old worn-out school can be avoided and conveyance to a central school over good roads provided at a reasonable cost. At the present time there are about a hundred conveyances, mostly motor-buses, employed in the conveyance of children, and as roads are improved and the cost of transport reduced the policy is to extend the system. The Department is receiving numerous unreasonable requests to pay the full cost of conveyance of children to school where the distances are not great and the number of children is small and the cost high for the service to be performed. In all such cases the present allowance of 6d. per pupil per day plus half the reasonable cost above that capitation is considered all that the Government should be called upon to provide. The Department wishes to do all it reasonably can to offer the farm child the best educational facilities, but it cannot undertake to provide motor-buses at whatever cost to convey to school every child whose home is distant over two or three miles. Enrolment and Attendance. The total enrolment in public primary schools at the end of the year 1925 was 214,724, an increase of 1,434 over the total for the previous year. Regularity of Attendance. —The regularity of attendance has continued at a highly satisfactory figure, the average attendance for the year 1925 being 91-4 per cent, of the average weekly roll number. The Otago Education District again has the highest degree of regularity, but the figures for all districts are creditable, in no case falling below 90-4 per cent. The relative activities of the nine Education Boards may be gauged from the following figures, which are exclusive of the secondary departments of district high schools : —

The more pronounced increase in the North Island districts is, of course, a naturah corollary to the northward trend of the population. It will be observed that the Auckland District accounts for almost 48 per cent, of the increase for the Dominion.

5

Enrolment. Schools, 1925 ,, , . Education District. " Percentage" ( « ol « d «!« " 1925.° " ' 1920. 1925. Increase, ; Grado 0) ' ! Five Years. ! Auckland .. .. .. 56,881 65,070 14 703 1,800 Taranaki .. .. .. 10,276 11,474 12 160 341 Wanganui .. .. .. 15,605 17,218 10 190 477 Hawke's Bay .. .. 14,319 16,277 14 165 456 Wellington.. .. .. 24,717 26,972 9 227 725 Nelson .. .. .. 7,000 7,143 2 - 122 243 Canterbury.. .. .. 34,775 36,887 6 379 979 Otago .. .. .. 22,012 21,360 -3 242 608 Southland .. .. .. 12,060 12,323 2 183 373 Totals .. .. 197,645 214,724 9 2,371 6,002