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William Snow. The Rev. P. B. Fraser, Messrs. Thomas Mackenzie, and James Mitchell were the members who retired. Five candidates were nominated by the School Committees for the vacancies occurring in the month of August. The result was the re-election of Messrs. Mackenzie and Mitchell, and the election of the Hon. Thomas Fergus in the place of the Rev. P. B. Fraser, who did not offer himself for re-election. At the first meeting of the Board in September, Mr. William Snow was re-elected Chairman. The Rev. P. B. Eraser, M.A., and Mr. Thomas Mackenzie, M.H.R., were appointed members of the Board of Governors of the Otago Boys' and Girls' High Schools, and Mr. Donald Borrie was re-appointed the Board's representative on the Waitaki High Schools Board. Mr. Donald Borrie continues to represent the Board as one of the Education Reserves Commissioners. The Board held twenty-five meetings during the year. Number op Schools. —At the close of 1902 there were 215 schools in operation in the district. Household schools were opened at Beaumont Station and Puketoi. The Maungawera, Poinahaka Downs, and Tahora Schools were reopened, and schools were established at Ardgowan and Owaka Valley. The Purakauiti and Tomahawk Schools were closed. The number of schools in operation at the end of the year was 220. Teachers. —On the 31st December there were 522 teachers in the Board's service. The new staffs and salaries scheme has rendered it impracticable to staff outlying country schools with experienced and classified teachers, and has greatly increased the difficulty of enlisting and retaining the services of male teachers. The Board views with alarm the rapid increase of female over male teachers. In Otago, during the last ten years, male teachers have decreased in number by 25, and female teachers have increased by 49 ; in other words the number of male teachers has in this period decreased by 11 per cent., and the number of female teachers increased by 17 per cent. Notwithstanding every effort to keep the sexes of our pupil-teachers nearly equal in number, females are to males as 9 to 2, and this is the ratio at which the sexes are entering the ranks of the primary-school teachers of the colony. Naturally parents look beyond the salaries paid to pupil-teachers to those paid to assistants and headmasters of country schools, and, finding the career unpromising from the point of view of adequate remuneration, decline to let their sons enter upon it. According to the experts, a large school is not as a rule properly staffed if Standards IV., V., and VI., are not taught by male teachers. However capable they may be as teachers, females are unable to bear the strain of teaching these classes, which must therefore be taught by the male assistants of the school. In many cases the classes taught by the second and third assistants are larger than those taught by the first; and it is affirmed by teachers and Inspectors that they are as difficult to teach. If that is the ease, and the Board believes it is, there seems no valid reason for the great difference in the salaries. The first assistants are certainly not too well paid ; it follows therefore that the others are greatly underpaid. At any rate, that is the Board's deliberate judgment. Not only must Standards IV. and V. be taught by male teachers, they must be taught by good male teachers; and good men, if they enter, will not remain in the service with the prospect of being only at the £130 milepost at the end of twenty-five years. The Board would plead for such a revision of the salaries scheme as would make the service one into which able young men might enter with the prospect of being able to maintain a wife and family at the age at which a teacher, as a unit of the commonwealth, might reasonably be expected to bear such a responsibility. Pupil-teachers.—There were 87 pupil-teachers (16 males and 71 females) in the service at the end of the year. Owing to a decrease in the attendance necessitating a reduction of the staff of a number of the schools, and also to its having been decided to work some of the large schools with a pupil-teacher less than the scale allows, so that an increment might be made to the salary of the second assistant (male), the Board found at the end of the year that no additional pupil-teachers were required, and, in consequence, resolved not to hold the annual examination of candidates for employment as pupil-teachers. Scholarships.—Twenty-five scholarships (12 senior and 13 junior) were awarded at the examinations in December, 1903. There were in all 95 competitors, 25 for the senior and 70 for the junior scholarships. In addition to the scholarships awarded, 9of the senior competitors gained sufficient marks to entitle them to free education for three years at the Otago Boys' and Girls' High Schools. Free education at these schools for two years is conferred on all junior competitors who, though not gaining scholarships, yet obtain 60 per cent, of the attainable marks, and for this free education 4 of the junior competitors qualified. One senior competitor and 17 junior competitors were disqualified on account of failing to obtain in one or other of the subjects at least 20 per cent, of the marks allotted to it. In December there were 33 (15 boys and 18 girls) receiving free education at the high schools in Dunedin in connection with the scholarship scheme. Owing to the coining into operation of the new regulations, providing free secondary education for pupils who have passed S6 the Board found it necessary to remodel its scholarship regulations. The amendments, which have received the Minister's sanction, consist mainly in the offering of two junior scholarships annually to pupils from schools with only one teacher and in the reduction of the annual amount of the junior scholarships from £15 to £7 10s., and of the senior scholarships from £20 to £12 10s. In order to bring the Board's regulations into line with the Department's latest regulations for free secondary education, it may be necessary to reduce still further the annual amount of the senior scholarship in the cases of those holders who reside at their homes during the currency of the scholarship. School Attendance.—-There was an all-round decrease in the school attendance for the past year. There was a decrease of 980 in the number of pupils who attended at all during the year. There was a decrease of 308 in the attendance at the Dunedin Schools, while the attendance at all the other schools shows a falling-off of 672. The figures relating to the average attendance show a

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