THE EDUCATION SYSTEM.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 377, 30 April 1910, Page 2

THE EDUCATION SYSTEM.

THE CAPITATION QUESTION. By Telegraph—Press Association. Wellington, April 29. Asked by a Post reporter if lie Jiad anything to say regarding the criti-j cipin at a meeting of the North Canter-! bury Education Board relative to the; recent interview with him on the qnes-! tion of capitation grants to school com-j mittees, Mr. Fowlds replied:—"The only thing I have to say is that the statements made and figures quoted at the meeting of the Board prove the truth of my contention. In the inter- ' view referred to I did not say that all education boards had reduced the amount of their grants to school committees in consequence of the special capitation grant of !)d. What I did say was that some boards had either done that or had the increased amount of work that they required committees to do, and the figures quoted at the meeting of the Board referred to proved that statement to demonstration. It was there said that the North Canterbury Board had paid over to committees no less than 8s out of a total of 12s capitation that the Board received, and that some of the other boards gave only 4s o%d. The amount of work that committees in each case are expected to do with the money is not shown, and therefore the comparison is not quite complete. Talcing the figures as they stand, therefore, 1 contend that it is not' fair that committees in some education! districts should have to struggle through with 4s <)% d of capitation while com-j n.ittees in other parts of the Dominion are receiving twice that amount, and that no satisfactory solution of the ditfi-i culty, from the committees' point of | view, can be arrived at while merely voting to school committees a capitation of fld for their assistanve. Anybody can sec that this amount is totally inade-j quatc. and if fid is to be voted specially] why should not the whole of the amount' required by committees (be voted in one! sum? Either the whole amount required for committees ought to be voted; direct, or the whole amount ought to! hi: voted to the boards with an indication from Parliament as to the manner! of its allocation. The discussion at the' n-<-eting of the North Canterbury Edu-I cation Board shows the tendency of each! board to look at what are national ques-i tions purely from the point of view of local experience, while the Minister of Education has to look at them from ai national standpoint. A system that' may ;be working satisfactorily in one district is not necessarily working satis-j factorily taking the Dominion as a whole."