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Summary of Results for the Whole District.
WESTLAND. Sir, — . Education Office, Hokitika, Bth February, 1892. I have the honour to submit the Inspector's annual report for the year 1891, and also the tabulated statistics of the year's examinations as required by the regulations in Council. It is hardly necessary I should remind the Board that this report must necessarily be an imperfect one, relating only to the last six months of the year, inasmuch as I did not enter on my present appointment till the middle of July. My time, therefore, until December was almost wholly spent 'in conducting the annual examinations of the schools, and my knowledge of these is restricted to what I have been able to glean at my visits for this purpose. My inability to visit the schools previously to examine them has, of course, been a disadvantage both to them and to me; since, on the one hand, it left me unacquainted with the degree of proficiency to which the schools had attained, and on the other deprived the teachers of the opportunity of ascertaining what my interpretation of the standards was likely to be, and consequently of preparing their children for it. It is desirable that these facts should be borne in mind in considering the following report. The most noticeable feature of the year from the Board's point of view would seem to bo the number of changes made in the teaching staff of the principal schools —a circumstance, I need hardly say, largely affecting the educational results of the year. I refer, of course, to the four schools of Kumara, Hokitika, Goldsborough, and Stafford, which may all be said to have received new head teachers this year, and one—l might almost say two of them—twice over; whilst the Hokitika School has been subjected to still further changes, the third assistantship having twice become vacant during the year. It is impossible to deny that so many changes, attended as such changes often are by a previous term of disorganization in the school, must have had an injurious effect on the progress of the scholars —a consideration to be balanced, however, by the thought that the Board has excellent ground for anticipating the best results in future from the new appointments. Another circumstance calling for preliminary notice is the somewhat disagreeable fact that the number of school-children in attendance throughout the district is decreasing, being, as shown in Table 1., 1,648 on the day of examination this year, as against 1,685 last year. As even a stationary roll-number is an unnatural phenomenon in a new country, this retrogression, though only to the extent of thirty-seven scholars, undoubtedly demonstrates a decline in resources, of which it is necessary to take notice, though too much significance need not be ascribed to it, especially in view of the fact that by opening a side-school at Dilhnanstown, as the Board now purposes doing, the decline here pointed out will probably be more than neutralised. Table 11. shows the thirty-one schools now in existence throughout the district grouped into two classes, those of the first class, thirteen in number, consisting of schools whose roll-number is above thirty, and those of the second class, eighteen in number, which are all schools of the first grade— i.e., schools of thirty scholars or less. Most of these eighteen schools are indeed very much smaller than the maximum here given, so that the sum of their roll-numbers amounts to only 218 scholars, or an average of twelve scholars and a fraction. It should be noticed, too, that ten of the eighteen are simply aided schools, whilst four, including two of the aided ones, are only half-time schools. On the other hand, the thirteen forming the first group show a combined roll-number of 1,430, or an average of 110 per school. Coming, then, to the state of education in the district, and degree of proficiency of the schools as revealed by the examinations of the year, I may remark in the first place that I have been most favourably impressed by the evident effort made by the majority of the teachers throughout the district —the evident effort to overtake the whole work of the syllabus of instruction, and teach everything prescribed by the regulations in Council. It has repeatedly thrust itself upon my notice how large is the amount of time and labour devoted by the teachers to instruction in the classsubjects and even some of the additional subjects, and how conscientiously and thoroughly this part of the work is often done ; and I am confirmed in this view by the statistics of this year's examinations, which show that the mean percentage obtained in class-subjects by the whole district is 40-2—a more favourable estimate than that made of the same work last year, which was 3-2 less. The schools in which this feature was most conspicuous are, in the first group, Woodstock, Kumara, Eoss, Gillespie's, Arahura Eoad, and Hokitika.
Classes. Presented. Absent. 1 Exeopted. Failed. Passed. Average Age o£ those that passed, Yrs. m. ibovo Standard VI. itandard VI. ... V. ... „ IV.... III.... II.... I. ... 'reparatory ... 28 64 166 233 231 208 177 563 4 15 34 19 10 7 2 2 6 6 10 3 6 24 30 29 20 9 52 125 163 177 168 158 13 11 13 1 12 0 11 3 9 1 8 9 Totals 1,670 I 89 29 118 843 11 5* * Mean of avi irage age.
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