Untitled

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 593, 14 December 1869, Page 2

The distribution of the large amounts annually voted by the Provincial Council to the Central Board of Education in this Province is extremely disproportionate and unjust to all ratepayers on the West Coast. Under the heading of Education, there was last year an item of £6500 voted for Provincial Schools, which amount is supposed to be handed over during the year to the Central Board, to be expended in maintaining the various schools in the Province. What infinitesimal proportion of this amount, might we ask, is obtained by the West Coast ? For Westport, where nearly the full amount is collected in education rates, the sum of £l5O is allowed for a teacher, and, within the past few months, a small amount has been voted by the Board for an assistant teacher. Cobden has also an allowance of £l5O for a schoolmaster, and Charleston this year has succeeded in having allotted to it £IOO, making a total of a slight margin over £4OO as the West Coast proportion of £6500. Well may the communities of such places Addison's Flat, the Northern Terraces, and Brighton complain of the total neglect of the rising generation. Repeated applications have been made to the Central Board and to the Government from these places, but the Government have the ready reply that the establishment, management, and control of all schools in the Province is no part or duty of theirs, so long as there exists a Board of Education. The Central Board are as readily provided with excuses —that their funds are all taken up, that their Bank account is overdrawn, and that they cannot open new schools this year. Our local members in the Provincial Council next session might strive to amend this vote in some manner, so as to obtain a fairer adjustment. Meantime, we fear, the only course left to those committees in outlying districts is to petition the Central Board, representing their cases fully, and asking for some subsidy in proportion to their own private subscriptions, trusting to the Board's favorable or unfavorable consideration.