70

TARANAKI GOVERNMENT GAZETTE.

REPORT OF THE EDUCATION BOARD.

Board of Education,
New Plymouth, Aug. 13, 1875.

SIR,—In compliance with the provisions of the "Education Ordinance, 1874," I have the honor to render my report for the year ending July 31st, 1875.

The Board at that date consisted of the following members:—Mr. B. Wells (chairman), Ven. Archdeacon Govett, B.A., Messrs. Standish, Crompton, Syme, Weyergang, and Lawrence. During the year Major Atkinson and Messrs. H. Richmond and C. W. Hursthouse resigned their seats at the Board. From the 20th of June, 1874, to the 7th of July, 1875, twenty meetings of the Board were held.

The Board has divided the New Plymouth district into ten sub-districts, as follows:—No. 1, Okato and Tataraimaka; No. 2, Oakura and Omata; No. 3, Town and environs of New Plymouth; No. 4, Mangorei; No. 5, Upper Waitara; No. 6, Bell Block; No. 7, Waitara; No. 8, Manutahi and Huirangi; No. 9, Tikorangi; No. 10, Ureuni. In each sub-district a local school managing committee has been elected.

The Board has schools at Okato, Tataraimaka, Oakura, Omata, Mangorei, Kent Road, Albert Road, Bell Block, Manutahi, Huirangi, and Tikorangi. In New Plymouth it has four schools; two for boys and two for girls. The Albert Road School and the senior Girls' School in New Plymouth have been established during the year.

New schoolhouses have been erected at Okato, Kent Road, and Albert Road; and a teacher's residence has been built at Bell Block. The schoolhouses at Oakura, Omata, Kawau Pa, Bell Block, Manutahi, Huirangi, and Tikorangi have been repaired. Several schoolhouses have been painted, and furnished with chimneys. A teacher's residence is in course of erection at Oakura; schoolhouses are being built at Tataraimaka and Waitara; tenders have been invited for the erection of a schoolhouse at Inglewood; the Baptist Chapel, New Plymouth, has been hired for school purposes; and a plot of land for a school-site has been purchased at Tataraimaka.

The number of children on the school registers for the quarter ending September 30th, 1874—the first quarter of the Board's existence—was 251, and the daily average attendance 163. The number on the school registers for the quarter ending June 30th, 1875, was 438, and the daily average attendance 285, showing an increase of the numbers on the registers of 187, and on the average daily attendance of 122. The total number of children in the district, from five to fifteen years of age, during the period was 1,192.

The Board has furnished the schools with black-boards, crayons, crayon-holders, compasses, bells, clocks, maps, desks, forms, pencils, buckets, brooms, and pannikins. A miscellaneous assortment of educational works, handed to the Board by the Provincial Government, has been distributed among them, and they have also been furnished with lesson-tablets, history and other reading books.

The following teachers are in the service of the Board:—Holding second-class certificate: Annie Reeve. Holding third-class certificates: Mary Brooking, Sarah Reeve, Catherine Hogarth, George O'Connell, William J. McKee, Charles Freer Crawford, Robert Albert Nicholas Earl, Stephen Carrick, W. H. Tobin, Thomas Bennett, Philip Callow Moore, and John Crean. Holding no certificate: Emily George, Caroline Lawrence, and Lydia E. Shaw. During the year two female teachers have resigned their appointments, and a male teacher has been dismissed for irregular conduct.

The Board has constituted and appointed the following committee:—Venerable Archdeacon Govett, B.A., Worcester College, Oxford; Mr. B. Wells, Chairman of the Board; and Mr. W. Northcroft, the Board's Secretary. The Committee have held examinations in Arithmetic, Grammar, Geography, and History, and have granted to candidates one second-class and fourteen third-class certificates. When the Board took office it immediately raised the salaries of the teachers from £20 to £40 per annum. After examination the salaries of those male teachers to whom the Examining Committee had granted third-class certificates were raised to £80 per annum, and that of the female teachers to whom the same certificates had been granted to £50 per annum. An exception was made in the case of the teacher of the East Town School, whose salary was raised to £90 per annum. During the last quarter of the year the salary of the teacher of the East Town School