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(4) With the establishment of a branch of the Department in Auckland, a team of Post-primary Inspectors is stationed there. A very high degree of co-operation hasalready been developed between schools and the Inspectorate, which must be reflected in greater efficiency in the schools. (5) Very successful refresher courses, one in each Island, were instituted for parttime teachers of motor engineering. These part-time teachers are tradesmen who areconcerned with the training of apprentices in technical evening classes. The refresher courses proved most valuable in giving these men some very necessary instruction in the art of teaching. (6) The establishment of a New Zealand Trades Certification Board. The functionsof this Board are to provide for the examination of persons practising any trade and to arrange for the granting of diplomas or certificates on the completion of an approved course in that trade. The development of the work of this Board will be of great importance to technical education. (7) Daylight training of apprentices has begun in plumbing and motox engineering. This aspect of apprentice-training will become more widespread when accommodation and staffing are available. (8) The award of Post-primary Teachers' Bursaries, begun in 1947, was continued this year, and I am pleased to report that some excellent students have been attracted to the profession. In 1948 there were 264 applicants for the fifty bursaries offered. (9) To overcome the shortage of commercial teachers, a training course was established at Wellington Technical College for adult students who already had some business experience and who held qualifications in accountancy or in shorthand and typing. Fourteen trainees completed the course and are now teaching in post-primary schools. (10) Short two-day district conferences between local teachers and Inspectors from primary and post-primary branches of the profession have been instituted. These have proved very successful in co-ordinating school work' locally and in giving a greatermeasure of continuity throughout the pupil's school life. Christchurch Post-primary Schools A problem in educational administration is to reconcile the need for the greatest degree of local participation with the necessity for central direction of educational policy. When each city or town required no more than one or two post-primary schools the problem was not so difficult, but it has now been complicated by the need for several schools in each large city and by the existence side by side of technical schools and the secondary schools. It is highly" desirable that there should be individual local interest in and control of each school, but at the same time it is also, I think, necessary to have one controlling authority concerned with the more general problems of educational development and co-ordination in each urban area. The new arrangement in Christie church, established in terms of the Education Amendment Act, 1948, is designed tomeet that need. Each of the two technical schools and each of the four high schools is governed by a Board of Managers ; and a central Board of Governors, on which each Board of Managers is represented, is charged with general oversight of the co-ordination and advising the Government on the development of post-primary educational facilities in the Christchurch urban area. Higher Education University enrolments continue to be much higher than before 1939, and, though some slight decrease may be expected within the next two or three years, it seemsprobable that the students for whom the University Colleges will still have to provide will greatly exceed the numbers for whom the buildings were designed. As mentioned

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