FREE SECONDARY EDUCATION.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3021, 19 October 1908, Page 4

FREE SECONDARY EDUCATION.

The annual report of the Minister of Education states that at the end of 1907 the secondary schools giving free tuition to duly qualified pupils numbered twenty-six, as against twenty-three for the previous year. The total number of pupils on the roll of these schools was 3,579, and of this total 2,468 were given free places under the regulations for free places at a mean average cost to the Treasury of £8 13s 6d per pupil. In 1906 the number of such free pupils was 2,435, with a mean capitation of £8 17s 4d per pupil. In addition, free tuition was given to 245 holders of scholarships or exhibitions granted by these schools, by Boards of Education (in some circumstances), or by endowed secondary schools not coming under the conditions, making the total number of free places held at secondary schools 2,735, as against 2,770 for 1906. Further, however, in reckoning thj amount of free secondary education in the Dominion must be included an almost equal number of pupils in attendance at the secondary classes of district high schools. There were on the roll of the secondary departments of these schools 2,452 pupils who had passed through the elementary school course ,and were in receipt ot secondary instruction not differing materially in character from the instruction given in the secondary schools. All but a comparatively small number of these were free pupils within the meaning of the regulations ior free places, receiving free tuition' at a total cost to the Government in salaries of £19,961, and an average annual cost per pupil enrolled of £8 2s lOd. There is thus an approximate total of 5,187 pupils receiving free secondary education, exclusive of those holding free places at technical schools.