E.—2

18

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, 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, £194), school requisites (Nelson, £218), &c. Table F3 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 schools ... 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 attendince, 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 rende-red during the year were not actually paid by the Boards until the beginning of the present year 1910. The proportion of the expenditure by Boards for administration to their whole expenditure and the corresponding proportion of the incidental expenses of schools (through Schools Committees) for the last five years have been as follows :— Boards. Committees. Total. 1905 5-0 5-7 10-7 1906 4-5 4-8 9-3 1907 ... ... ... ... ... ... 4-7 4-8 9-5 1908 ... ... ... ... ... ... 4-7 4-5 9-2 1909 ... ... ... ... 4-6 4-4 9-0 On the whole, therefore, there is a slight tendency for the proportion of expenditure upon administration by the Education Boards and Schools Committees to decrease, and this is as it should be, for the cost of administration should not increase proportionately with the number of schools. The corresponding percentages for the several Boards are given on page 30 As might be expected, the percentage is generally higher in the case of the smaller education districts.