CONFERENCE OF SECRETARIES OF EDUCATION BOARDS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXIII, Issue 285, 3 December 1901, Page 2

CONFERENCE OF SECRETARIES OF EDUCATION BOARDS.

A vert important conference takes placa in Wellington next week. The Education Department has invited the secretaries of the various Boards to mee' in Wellington to confer with the t-eer-tiry of the Education Department in !* fere ace t > many matters with a view of reducing tho work of these ofhV.ialH. Ths following circular memorandum, read at the last meeting of the EJuca'ion Bojid, fully explains' the objects of tho conference : —The Minister for Education wrote utatiug th-it as tbe passing of the Public School Teachers' Salaries Act would alter the basis of the principal paymeats made to Education Boards, it was desirable that the work entailed by the Act upon the officers of the various Boards, and of the Department, should, with due regard to efficiency, be kept within a* narrow limits as possible. There were other matters in which it wag advisable that the routine work should be made as simple as it could be | made. Such matters were tbe recognition of instructors and the sending in i of claims under the Manual and Tech-1 nical Instruction Act, 1900, district high school grants, the checking of railway tickets for drill and technical{ classrs, e'c. It had been suggested that there should be a conference betwnen the department and secretaries or Eiucation Boards, presided over by the Secte ary for Education, to d'scuss details with the objects mentioned in view, and the Minister asked whether the Board would be willing tbat its secretary >h juld attend such & conference to bi held in Wei ing ton about the second week in December. If was nos propost-d tha-, questions of policy should tn disjuss'id, but the great saving of wo'k t> the Boirds and the Department ti at would, i'> was hoped, be the tesulo of the conference, afforded sufficient reason for holding the conference.—The Bard concurred in the pro pes 1 and granted th,n weratary, Mr Whi'com'e, the necessary leave to attend t'ie vnnt'erence.