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All the year your managers have had under consideration plans for a building suitable for the work of technical classes proper. No fewer than three sets of plans have been dealt with, and after much correspondence with the Department and a good deal of modification of original proposals the Department has agreed to grant this association the sum of £1,000 to provide a suitable building. Your managers feel that this sum will be hardly enough to secure the number of rooms wished for, and are asking the Department for an increased grant. It is hoped that within two months tenders for the new building will be invited. The Education Board, which acts as our controlling authority, has all along rendered us what help it could, and so have its officials. At the close of the work for 1902 your managers, thanks to the ladies connected with the classes, were able to hold a most successful social gathering. Specimens of the work done in various classes were placed on exhibition, and certificates of efficiency were presented to those pupils who had been successful in certain examinations instituted by the managers. Perhaps the time may come when to gain one of the association's certificates of efficiency may be a coveted honour. Statement of Receipts and Expenditure for the Year ending the 31st December, 190.2. Receipts. £ s. d. Expenditure. £ s. d. Balance, 1901 .. .. .. .. 160 5 1 Salaries .. .. .. .. 205 14 0 Voluntary contributions .. .. .. 32 2 6 Secretary and stamps .. .. .. 20 15 0 Pees .. .. .. .. ;. 114 5 0 Gas-fittings .. .. .. .. 7 5 0 Sales .. .. .. .. .. 161 Apparatus and material .. .. .. 25 16 6 Government grants— Stationery and printing .. .. .. 10 17 3 Subsidy on voluntary contributions .. 24 12 6 Janitorial expenses .. .. .. 11 10 0 Capitation .. .. .. 48 8 4 Gas .. .. .. .. .. 6 110 Grant for apparatus and material, 1901 .. 40 610 Fees returned .. .. .. .. 019 6 Grant for apparatus and material, 1902 .. 19 8 0 Hire of hall .. .. .. .. 0 5 0 Interest on deposit in Savings-Bank .. 1 17 6 Bank charge's and cheque-book .. .. 015 0 Auditor .. .. .. .. .. 0 10 6 Main School Committee—firing, &c. .. 216 0 Balance in Bank of New Zealand .. .. 97 8 3 Balance in Savings-Bank .. .. .. 51 17 6 £442 11 10 j £442 11 10 Audited and found correct.—Wμ. Ibwin. —Timaru, 17th February, 1903. G. Crawshaw, Secretary. Extract from Eeport on the Timaru High School. The woodwork classes in connection with the boys' school, which had been discontinued on account of the small number of boys desirous of taking this subject, were resumed under the direct control of the headmaster, the fee formerly charged for this class being abolished. Possibly owing to the abolition of this fee the class was largely attended, forty boys attending it. In the girls' school the class for cookery under Miss O'Brien was continued with a roll of twenty, and a new class for dressmaking, with Miss Fyfe as teacher, was begun. Only about ten pupils attended this class. An extra fee was charged for dressmaking, but the Board has decided to make both classes free in future. Swimming classes were started in connection with both schools, but owing to the phenomenal inclemency of the weather during the swimming season only four or five lessons were given.

OTAGO. Extract from Bepokt of the Education Board. Technical Instruction. —With the Government vote for the purpose the Board was enabled to establish and continue cookery classes for teachers, and at certain centres cookery schools have been instituted for the senior girls of the public schools, pupil-teachers, and such teachers as desire further instruction. Other similar classes are being set up. In the same localities carpentry classes are also formed for boys. Thus a solid basis of a certain amount of technical work is founded for our schools. There still remains the establishment of permanent tutoring in handwork in connection with the Training College. This the Board hopes to see accomplished during the present year. To prepare for handwork being generally taught in the schools the Board has passed a resolution to provide as soon as possible specially designed desks for infant-rooms. Eeference must here be made to the fact that the Board agreed, so far as responsibility is concerned, to take over the assets of the Dunedin Technical Classes' Association, and to assist in carrying on the classes as continuation and technical classes for the youth of the city. Under special regulations, since issued by the Minister of Education, a combined directorate now has them in charge. Extract from the Eepokt of the Inspectors of Schools. Handwork has been introduced into a few of the schools, and gives fair promise of success. By means of summer classes for the teachers of the outlying districts, Saturday classes for those at a distance from Dunedin but served by the railways, and evening classes for those in Dunedin and suburbs, preparation is being made for the general introduction of manual and technical instruction. The central cookery classes were a marked success. In these classes over 289 girls from the Sixth and Seventh Standards of the Dunedin and suburban schools went through a course of twenty two-hour lessons in the the theory and practice of plain cookery.

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