17

E.—]

Regulations under the Defence Act, 1909, are being compiled. Capitation will not in the future be paid, and the necessary uniforms and equipment will be provided free by the Crown. The organization of the Junior Cadets under the new scheme is under way, and there is every prospect of last year's numbers being doubled. The expenditure for the year was £3,914 18s. 2d. Finances of Education Boards. Table F contains an abstract of the accounts of the receipts and expenditure of Education Boards for the year 1909. These are shown in detail in Tables Fl and F*2 of the special report (E.-2), and an appendix thereto contains the annual reports of the several Boards, with their statements of receipts and expenditure in full detail. The revenue from reserves, together with the amount next following, should be balanced by the disbursements for teachers' salaries; the difference is due to the adjustments remaining to be made at the end of the year between the Boards and the Department. The last remark applies also to the amounts received and paid for teachers' house allowances, for free school-books, for conveyance and board of school-children, for training colleges, for scholarships, and for district high schools. The balances due to or by the Boards for these items are taken into account in Table F6 of the special report (E.-2), and in the summary of it given below. The greater part of the grant for maintenance and rebuilding of schools for the year 1909 was not paid over to the Boards until the beginning of 1910. Boards' administration includes salaries of Inspectors and other officers, travelling-expenses of Inspectors and other officers and of members of Boards, and the miscellaneous incidental expenses of office administration. Refunds and. sundries includes the cost of erection of Board's offices (South Canterbury, £720), payment to injured employee (Hawke's Bay, 43194), school requisites (Nelson, £218), &c. Table F3 in the special report (E.-2), shows the salaries and allowances paid to officers of Education Boards other than teachers. Tables F4 and F5 give a summary of the receipts and expenditure of the Boards for the several years 1877-1909. If we exclude the expenditure on buildings and on scholarships and secondary education, which are dealt with below, the chief items of expenditure in 1907, in 1908, and 1909 were as follows :— 1907. 1908. 1909. £ £ £ Boards'administration ... ... 37,832 39,730 42,392 Incidental expenses of sohools ... 38,320 38,077 40,452 Teachers' salaries ... ... ... 484,673 489,042 554,012 Training colleges ... ... ... 20,086 19,949 22,425 Manual and technical instruction ... 43,462 48,212 47,927 The increase in teachers' salaries is due principally to the large increase in the scale introduced by the Education Amendment Act, 1908, which came into operation on the Ist January, 1909; partly also to the improvement in the staffing of schools with thirty-six to forty children in average attendance, sanctioned by the same Act; and partly to the increase in the number of schools. The increase in the cost of the administration by Boards and Committees is probably due mainly to the last-named cause. The slight decrease in the expenditure upon manual and technical instruction must not be taken as indicating a falling-off in the attendance or in the number of classes, which, on the contrary, have grown considerably (see the special paper, E.-5). It is due probably to the fact that various payments for services rendered during the year were not actually paid by the Boards until the beginning of the present year 1910.

3—E. 1,