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Buildings In spite of acute difficulties arising from shortages of labour and materials, a verycreditable volume of building work was done, no less than £992,275 being expended from the Public Works Account on the erection and improvement of buildings for educational purposes. The corresponding figure for the year ending 31st March, 1946, was £1,187,823, but some £240,000 of that was accounted for by the.purchase from the War Assets Realization Board of the already existing buildings for the Avondale Technical High School and the Avondale Intermediate School. Major building works completed during the year include — Primary Schools: Kamo, Otahuhu South, Dyer Street, Waddington (temporary school), and Strathmore Park. Intermediate Schools : Balmoral and Matamata. District High Schools : Kaitaia, Rawene, Te Puke, and Waitara. Secondary Schools: Epsom Girls' Grammar School, Wellington Girls' College, and Rangiora High School. Technical Schools : Kaikohe and Petone. The following were among major works in progress at the end of the year — Primary Schools: Rotorua South, Stratford, Taita No. 1, Taita North, Khandallah, Ashburton, and Limehills. Intermediate School: Hutt. Secondary Schools: Auckland Girls' Grammar School, Hastings High School, Rangiora High School, Timaru Girls' High School, and Southland Girls' High School. Technical Schools : Dunedin and Invercargill. Particularly difficult problems have had to be surmounted in providing adequate school accommodation in the rapidly developing Government housing estates in the vicinity of Auckland and Wellington, but, thanks largely to the work of the Architects of the Education Boards concerned, of the Commissioner of Works' Office and the Public Works Department and of the Education Department, the demand has been adequately met up to the present in spite of a few minor crises. It appears that the situation will be fairly well in hand during 1947, but the strain on all the organizations concerned is very considerable, since they are having to meet at the same time the special problems created by the rapid increase in the number of births. By 1952-54 the pressure on school accommodation resulting from the peak birth-rates centring on the years 1941 and 1946 will be acute in the lower ends of both the primary and the post-primary schools. Great, and often ingenious, use has been made during the year of disused buildings originally erected for war purposes and now adapted to a wide variety of school uses. Finance The total expenditure on education, including revenue from reserves vested in postprimary schools and University colleges, was £8,771,503 for the year ending 31st March, 1947. The corresponding figure for 1945-46, including £29,447 expended from the War Expenses Account, was £7,945,773. The Teaching Profession During the year the Government set up, under the chairmanship of Mr. A. F. McMurtrie, Assistant Director of Education, a Consultative Committee on Teachers' Salaries, representative of the Department and of all three branches of the teaching service. It was instructed "to inquire into and report on the scales of salaries for primary and post-primary teachers, inspectors of schools, and Vocational Guidance Officers, and professional officers drawn from the teaching service, with reference to the adequacy of existing rates, to the suitability of the present types of salary scales, and to the desirability of devising a scale or scales that shall have a common basis for the primary and the post-primary services; and on the basis of this inquiry to formulate a scale or scales for presentation to the Government."

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