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colleges for a third year to specialize in such subjects as art, music, physical education, science, languages, and methods applicable to teaching special groups of children. The Board of Studies set up at Wellington to co-ordinate the work of the Training College and the University College has worked very successfully. It has taken a personal interest in the students, and has helped those who wished to attend University classes to plan their proposed courses as suitably as possible. It has also taken a keen interest in a number of other matters affecting the students. I have under consideration the question of setting up a Board of Studies in the other Training College centres. All teachers not in permanent positions at the beginning of 1937 and not otherwise required were in the meantime employed as supernumerary teachers in schools where their services were most needed. They were informed that they were to apply for permanent positions as these became vacant and were to be available for transfer to other districts, if the need arose. Towards the end of the year it was necessary to call upon some to render service under other Education Boards. I regret that during the early weeks of the year many schools in most parts of the Dominion had to be kept closed because of the prevalence of infantile paralysis. I wish to express my appreciation of the manner in which instruction was given by the teachers by means of correspondence tuition, broadcasting, and other means, and my thanks to all who made these forms of instruction possible, the teachers, the press, the National Broadcasting Service, and the Post Office. The Government was pleased to decide that teachers and students who would normally have taken up new positions on the Ist February should be paid as from that date. Similarly consideration was given to the claims of contractors for the conveyance of children to school for the periods during which the schools were closed, and with the object of obviating hardship it was decided to pay to the contractor 75 per cent, of what he would have received had the schools been open. Dates of school terms and holidays fixed in accordance with the regulations for the year 1937 were modified, first on account of the closing of the schools during the infantile paralysis outbreak, and, secondly, to give teachers an opportunity of attending the sessions of the New Education Fellowship Conference. All primary schools and the majority of post-primary schools were closed for the period of the Conference, and the first or second term holidays were reduced accordingly. Some post-primary schools, in view of the late start, elected to have only two terms, the term holidays being taken in the month of July. As the provisions of the Education Amendment Act, 1936, in respect to the abolition of the Proficiency Examination and the discontinuance of the issue of Certificates of Proficiency became operative as from the 30th September, 1937, regulations were made providing for the issue of Primary School Certificates to pupils who had completed a course of Form II in a public school, Native school, or private school. These certificates are issued by head teachers. There is good reason for believing that the abolition of this examination will be a milestone in the history of education in the Dominion. The teachers have already accepted the freedom and the responsibility that is associated with it, and I look forward to greater originality and greater initiative in the courses of work in the primary schools than has been the case in the past. I feel sure that the teachers will now endeavour to provide for their pupils, as far as possible, the course of work for which each has the most aptitude and inclination. On the 24th June, 1937, a representative gathering of departmental officers, principals of schools, and others interested in visual education discussed this question. The following were the more important topics : The place of the cinema in education; the relative merits of the silent and the sound

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