The Manawatu Herald. Tuesday, February 1, 1910. EDUCATION GRANTS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 806, 1 February 1910, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. Tuesday, February 1, 1910. EDUCATION GRANTS.

The recently announced reduction in building grants by the Educalion Department to Boards was the subject of some remarks by the Hon. Mr Fowlds, MiiiEtcr for Education, to a Post reporter. “Some Boards,” he said, “talk as if these grants that are being cut are grants lor new buildings. It has absolutely nothing to do with the question of new buildings in newly settled districts, or with additions to buildings necessitated by increased attendance. Grants are still made directly from the Department to make provision for cases of this kind.” The grant for maintenance and repair of schools remains exactly where it was before. What has been cut down is simply the allowance that had been paid for a number of years on a given basis for the purpose of re-building old schools. In the last five or six years specific grants lor this purpose amounted to about ,£89,000 more than the Boards to whom the grants were made spent for that purpose. “I do not,” added Mr Fowlds, “think there is one Board in New Zealand that could show that it has spent more on re-building wornout schools that has been paid to it by the Department for that purpose.” The fact was that a good many Boards had been using a considerable portion of this money in general work purposes for which they did not get it.