APRIL 8.] THE NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE. N11

minutes each as 4·2 units, and so on, in each such case the nearest tenth of a unit being taken, provided that the minimum number of units prescribed for the subject is reached.

Senior Free Places.

7. Subject to these regulations—(a.) A senior free place is tenable by any pupil who is the holder of an Education Board senior scholarship, or of any other scholarship that the Minister shall approve for this purpose; provided that the value of any such scholarship is not greater than £40 per annum in the case of any pupil who is obliged to live away from home in order to attend the school, or more than £10 in any other case.
   (b.) A senior free place is tenable by any pupil who has passed the Matriculation Examination, or the Civil Service Junior Examination, or the special examination for senior free places; or has satisfied the examination requirements for an Education Board senior scholarship or any other scholarship that the Minister shall approve for this purpose.
   (c.) The Minister may also award a senior free place to any pupil who, in the opinion of the Inspector-General of Schools, is shown on a report from the principal of the secondary school or, in the case of a district high school, from the Inspector of Schools of the education district to have satisfactorily completed during the two years immediately preceding not less than 36 units of work as defined in the Schedule to clause 6 hereof, such 36 units to include at least 8 units of English (Group I), 6 units in Group II, 4 units in Group IV, and, if a subject be chosen from Group III, not less than 4 units therein; further, credit cannot be given for any other subject in which less than 2 units have been done during the two years, nor can credit for this purpose be given for any subject in which the conditions of the Schedule to clause 6 have not been fulfilled.

NOTE.—Applications to be admitted to the special examination for senior free places under paragraph (b), and applications for admission to senior free places under paragraph (c), must be sent, on forms provided by the Education Department, to the Inspector-General of Schools before 30th September.

8. (i.) The secondary school shall admit to a senior free place any pupil qualified under clause 7 hereof, unless such pupil can attend a secondary school nearer his home.
   (ii.) Every district high school shall admit to a senior free place any pupil qualified under the before-mentioned clause, and no such school shall admit to a senior free place any pupil not so qualified.

9. A senior free place at a secondary school or district high school is tenable until the holder has reached his nineteenth birthday, but no longer.

10. The secondary school or district high school shall give to each senior free pupil more advanced instruction in the secondary subjects named in clause 6 hereof. In general, the total number of units of work in a year should be not less than 20.

General.

11. As a condition of admission to a free place any candidate may be required to furnish to the principal of the school to which admission is sought reasonable evidence of good character.

12. Notwithstanding the foregoing regulations, the secondary school shall not be required to admit pupils to free places at any other time than the beginning of the school year, unless it shall seem expedient to the governing body of the secondary school to admit such pupils at any other time.

13. In case there shall not be sufficient accommodation at the secondary school for all pupils seeking admission to the school, those qualified as holders of scholarships under paragraph (a) of clause 3, and under paragraph (a) of clause 7 hereof, shall first be admitted, and then the remaining applicants, whether free pupils or otherwise, in the order in which their applications for admission, made within the preceding twelve months, were received by the governing body of the secondary school.

14. (i.) A free place, whether held at a secondary school or a district high school, or held partly at the one and partly at the other, shall be reckoned continuously from the date of the original admission of the pupil to a free place in the school first attended.
    (ii.) Except as hereinafter provided or as the Minister may direct, any intermission of attendance exceeding a period of three months in duration shall be deemed to determine the free place; and, further, the free place held by a pupil whose attendance during any term or quarter falls below 50 per cent of the possible total of attendance at the school shall, with a similar exception, be deemed to have lapsed as at the close of the period specified.

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