OUR NATIONAL SCHOOLS. Review of the Year's Progress.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 156, 12 June 1886, Page 3

OUR NATIONAL SCHOOLS. Review of the Year's Progress.

Wellington, June 11. The annual report on education laid before Parliament Bhowa that the average attendance for the year at public schools was 80,302, a number which exceeds that of the preceding year by 4,911. The average for the last quarter cf the year was 81,663, which is the highest that has yet been reached. The year 1884 ended with a . roll of 97,238. The names of 50,628 children were enrolled in 1885, and of the total of 147.866 names, only 102,407 remained at the end of thb year, co that the number of pupils removed from the roll in twelvemonths Was 45,459, and the actual increase of 5,169 names on the roll represents simply the difference between 50,628 admiesiona and 45,459 withdrawals. There can be no doubt but the unsteadiness of the attendance militates against the efficiency of the schools. The districts in which the number on the roll at the end of the year is less than twice 1 the number of admissions are : Auckland, Taranaki. Wellington, and Hawke's Bay. Three Boards-— Otago, Auckland,and North Canterbury— (to name them in the order of, their numerical importance) have under their care three-fifths of the whole number of public school pupils. Aa a rule the average salary of teachers is less in very small' districts than in very large ones; the leading exception to the rule appearing in the case of Auckland, the largest district but one, where a large proportion of small aohoola and rather COBtly administration keepdown the rate of salary, The roll number at the end of the yeajr (102;407) includes '932 children of the ; native race- as against 703 *n 'lBB4 and •435 in 1880.' This statement has 1 nothing to do with the number attending native ?^ d ™ '< 2 « 161 >' including a few, perhaps 160; European ? children.* In -the "eight yeara that have 'elapsed since the pass- *-^ ',c,, e , Al e *t the\nuinber of pupilain the' EW°,« B J^P olB **M u *e|uply il cloilßied''itaeli: £ he F°?J^ umb HB#t the endof aB77,and at the end of 1885, ' respectively,* being > 55;688^