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well as to children. The erection of similar buildings has been approved at nine other schools. Five schools have model cottages. The institution of permanent water-supplies has been pushed forward vigorously ; and the provision of necessaryequipment for the supply of malted milk in Native schools that cannot secure pasteurized milk is being made as rapidly as possible. Native-school Teachers. Next year provision will be made for the special training of teachers for Native schools by the institution of third-year studentships at a training college, the appointment of probationary assistants to Native schools, and the admission under a special quota of Maori girls and boys to training colleges. A refresher course for teachers in Native schools will be held at Rotorua in February. A comprehensive report on the present facilities for the post-primary education of the Maori is being prepared by the Department as a basis for future policy. In the meantime the scholarship system has been extended. SCHOOL BUILDINGS. It is not easy for teachers to develop their work along modern, active lines in schools that were devised for paper-and-pencil teaching to large passive classes, and that, even according to those old-fashioned standards, may be aged and decrepit. So the building programme has been kept in the forefront of the movement for educational reform. The expenditure on public school buildings in 1938 was higher than ever before, and the quality of the new buildings conforms to a standard never before known in New Zealand. Additional buildings have also been provided for secondary and technical schools and at the Auckland and Wellington University Colleges. Substantial building programmes were also undertaken in Native schools and in institutions administered by the Child Welfare Branch. Further buildings are being erected at the New Zealand Institute for the Blind in Auckland. There is still, however, much to be done. Many classes are housed in unsuitable rented buildings, and in other cases serious overcrowding exists. School residences are often far from satisfactory. A comprehensive list of requirements has been prepared, and the proposals will be examined in their order of urgency. CHILD WELFARE BRANCH. Preventive Work. There are some 4,250 children under the legal guardianship of the Superintendent of Child Welfare, while another 3,400 are under supervision in some form or other. Within recent years the Branch has concentrated more and more on the preventive side of its work. Unfortunately, public opinion has come to associate the Branch and its Child Welfare Officers almost exclusively with the Children's Courts and juvenile delinquency. It is essential that the public should be made to realize that the officers of the Branch are there to help parents and children generally, that the punitive aspect of their work is a very minor one, and that no stigma need attach to any child who is referred to them for help and guidance. In their work during the past year they have saved scores of difficult or maladjusted children from appearing before the Courts at all, simply because they were given the opportunity of dealing with the cases early enough. Boys' Training Farm. The buildings at the Boys' Training Farm at Weraroa are out of date and most unsuitable for the new scheme of training that is projected. It is planned to build separate villas that will allow of better classification of the boys and will permit of a more positive plan for helping them to rehabilitate themselves. Technical instruction will be provided for the boys in the coming year.

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