COST OF EDUCATION.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5225, 11 January 1928, Page 1

COST OF EDUCATION.

increase in expenditure.

“MORE APPARENT THAN REAL.”

Expenditure on education has increased rapidly during recent years. The public purse was called upon to the extent of £3,910,241 for the financial year which ended on March 31 last.

The Year Book for 1928 supplies a series of comparative figures showing the, increase in the cost of education since the beginning of the present century. In 1899 the expenditure was £519,000, or 13s 4d per head of population ; and in 1914, £1,301,000, or 23s Id per head. In 1920 it had risen to £2,544,000, or 42s 2d per h-nad, and last year it was £3,910,000, or 55s l ( l per head.

“The exceptionally marked increase of recent years in the total, cost of education,” comments the review, “is in a large measure due to the increase in the numbers receiving instruction, th’s being particularly marked in the; case of post-primary schools. In the last decade the school population has increased by 22 p.er cent. Con.bined with this factor, rendering increased expenditure inevitable, the puiTbasing power of money has, of course, decreased enormously since pre-war days,- so that much of the increase in cost is more apparent than real.”