E.—l

3

BEPOBT.

Contents. This report, with its appendices, gives the information which is of general public interest with regard to the administration of the Education Act, 1908, the Education Amendment Acts, 1908, 1910, and 1912, and the Education Reserves Acts, 1908 and 1910, the expenditure of public funds appropriated by Parliament for educational purposes, and the principal statistics relating to matters which are more fully dealt with in separate papers, as follows : — E.-2. Primary Education ; with appendices, namely,— Appendix A. Reports of Education Boards ; Appendix B. Education Reserves. Appendix C. Reports of Inspectors ; Appendix D. Training of Teachers ; Appendix E. List of Public Schools and Teachers, with certain Details of Expenditure. E.-3. Native Schools. E.-4. Special Schools and Infant-life Protection. E.-5. Manual and Technical Instruction. E.-6. Secondary Education. E.-7. Higher Education. E.-8. Annual Examinations. E.-9. Teachers' Superannuation. E.-10. Public Libraries. E.-12. Conferences on Education: A, Conference of Inspectors of Schools ; B, Training College Conference. In this report summaries are made of the more important tables appearing in the separate papers above mentioned. These summaries are numbered with the letters from the alphabet from A to N, and the tables from which they were prepared will be found in the separate paper concerned, numbered Al, A 2, 81, 82, &c. Where information in any section of this report has been prepared from tables appearing in the other reports above named., a reference will be found under the heading of the section to the table concerned and the report in which it is printed. PEIMARY EDUCATION. Number of Public Schools. (E.-2.—Table Al.) The number of public schools open at the end of 1912 was 2,214, as against 2,166 for the year 1911. Thus there is an increase of 48. In Table A the schools are classified according to the yearly average attendance. In a number of cases schools maintained in grades under Schedule A of clause 2 of the staffs and salaries regulations are included in this table in such grades, although the average attendance of these schools respectively for 1912 was below the minimum of the grades as indicated in Table A. The classification is in accordance with the provisions of the Education Amendment Act, 1908, which came into operation on the Ist January, 1909. The number of small schools with an average attendance not exceeding 15 has increased since 1911 from 555 to 559. There has likewise been a marked increase in schools with an average attendance of 16 to 80 —1,268 as compared with 1,225. Taking all the schools with not more than 80 in average attendance, we find an increase of 47 in the number of schools. Of schools with an average attendance of over 80 the number has increased by 1 —387 as against 386. It will thus be seen that the total increase (48) has taken place almost entirely in the rural schools with one or two teachers only. Schools with an average of 35 or under are sole-teacher schools. On referring to Table Ait will be seen that there were 1,343 such schools. But, as already stated,