E.— ■&

1916. NEW ZEALAND.

EDUCATION: ANNUAL EXAMINATIONS. [In continuation of E.—8, 1915.]

Presented to both, Houses of the General Assembly by Command of His Excellency,

No. 1. EXTRACT FROM THE THIRTY-NINTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE MINISTER OP EDUCATION. Annual Examinations. The annual examinations were conducted by the Education Department a,s usual for the various purposes of Junior and Senior National Scholarships, junior and senior free places in secondary schools, district high schools, and technical schools, and teachers' certificates. Also, by arrangement with the Public Service Commissioner, examinations were held for admission to and promotion in the Public Service. The examinations were held from the 23rd November to the 3rd December, 1915, and from the sth to the 19th January, 1916, at sixty-three centres. The following table shows collectively, in comparison with the preceding year, the number who entered for the various examinations above enumerated, the number present, and the number of absentees :— 1.914-15. 1915-10. Number who entered ... .... ... ... 10,126 10,978 Number who actually sat for examination ... ... 8,727 9,453 Number of absentees ... ... ... ... 1,399 1,525 While the high proportion of absentees —nearly 14 per cent, of the number of candidates —is as usual due to some extent to the practice of granting exemption from examination to training-college candidates for teachers' certificates, and still more to the granting of Senior free places without examination to pupils of secondary schools and district high schools, there is yet a fairly large number of candidates who enter for the examinations without any serious intention of presenting themselves. This is particularly noticeable in connection with those examinations to which admission is free, the proportion of absentees for the Public Service Senior Examination, for instance, being as high as 22 per cent.

I—E. 8.