B.—l

34

(a.) Free education, at technical classes ; or (b.) A free place at a secondary school, district high school, or technical high school ; or (c.) A University or educational bursary at a, University college. A bursary entitles the holder to an allowance, in addition to free tuition, of ,£l I.os. or £3 per annum in. the case of those qualified under (a), £5 for those under (b), or £10 for those under (c). Lodging-al owance is also paid to bursars who are obliged to live away from, home to attend school, at the rate of £15 per annum under (a,) and £30 under (b) and (c) ; travelling-allowances varying from £5 to £10 per annum are also made when travelling is necessary. During 1919 the number of bursaries held at secondary schools was thirty-five, as compared with twenty-seven in 1918, the expenditure thereon being £524. Secondary-school Certificates. Three classes of certificates may be issued to free-place holders taking a secondary course of instruction. The intermediate certificate may be granted to junior-free-place holders who have satisfactorily completed under certain conditions a two-years course at a secondary school, district high school, or technical high, school, and who in general are qualified in attainment to receive a senior free place. The lower leaving-certificate may be issued to pupils who have satisfactorily completed a three-years course of secondary instruction, including not less than one year of a senior course in which the standard of work is sufficiently advanced in character to meet the requirements of the examination for a teacher's certificate of Class D, or of the Matriculation Examination. Likewise the higher leavingcertificate may be granted to pupils having satisfactorily completed at least a fouryears course of secondary instruction and having satisfied the requirements of the lower leaving-certificate, and, in addition, having completed to good advantage and under certain conditions a further secondary course of not less than one year. Staffs of Secondary Schools. (Table K3 in E.-6.) The number of teachers on the staffs of secondary schools, excluding lower departments, was for the last three years as follows :— , 1917. , , 1918. , , 1919. , Males. Females. Total. Males. Females. Total.' • Males. Females. Total. Regular staff .. ..174 175 349 175 195- 370 186 195 381 Part time .. ..37 43 80 42 43 85 74 74 The staffs of Wanganui Collegiate and Christ's College Grammar Schools, totalling twenty-nine teachers, have been excluded from the figures for 1919 ; the number of male teachers in 1919 was thus forty more than in the previous year, the number of women teachers remaining the same. The return to duty of teachers who had been on active service accounts for the unusual increase in the number of men teachers, the positions of many of whom had been held temporarily by women. Included in the regular staff for 1919 are twenty-two Principals and 349 assistant teachers. The average number of pupils per full-time assistant was twenty-four, the number ranging in the various schools from twenty-one to twenty-nine ; including the Principals, the average number of pupils per teacher was twenty-two. The head teacher of a district high school generally takes some part in the secondary instruction, and now receives in addition to his ordinary salary the sum of £30 per annum if the average attendance of the secondary department does not exceed 120, and £50 per annum if it does exceed that number. In 1919 there were in the secondary departments of district high schools 105 special secondary assistants —thirty-four men and seventy-one women —the increase in the number of male assistants being thirteen, and the women assistants being one less in number than in, the previous year. The average number of pupils per assistant teacher was twenty-one, as compared with twenty-four in the previous year.