Report of the Committee.

We have the honor to report that we have considered the letter from the Central Board, referred to us for report, asking the Hokitika Local Committee (1) to inform the Board what the duties performed by teachers were, and (2) to make recommendations for curtailing the Boards expenditure.

In reference to the first request, we recommend that the Board be informed that the duties of teachers of schools are those prescribed by the Board's regulations, and consist, mainly, in instructing the pupils committed to their care. Should the Board require more detailed information on the subject, application, we think, might be made to the Inspector.

The invitation to the Committee to make recommendations for curtailing the Board's expenditure is one not so easily responded to. Such serious reductions in the staffs of schools, in the payments to teachers, and in the grants to Committees for school purposes, have already been made by the Westland Board, and such difficulty has been experienced, of late, in getting the most trifling repairs executed in school buildings, that we have taken some pains to endeavor to ascertain whether Westland is exceptionally treated by the Government in the matter of grants for Educational purposes, and whether the same financial difficulty and parsimony in the administration of the Education Act is common to the whole, or any other part of, this Colony. Your Committee find that the Government do not treat Westland illiberally in the matter of Education, and that no such financial difficulty as our schools now labor under, is experienced in any other part of New Zealand, or indeed page 2 in any colony to whose reports we have access.

The Report of the Minister of Education for last year shows that the Westland Board received, for that financial year from Government, the sum of £15,879 7s 1d, of which sum, £9,675 7s 1d, was for the maintenance of schools, and £6,200 for school buildings. There were 3,143 scholars on the Westland rolls for that year, so that this maintenance vote of £9,679, 7s 1d, amounted to £3 1s 7d per scholar, on the roll. The following table shows that, as compared with other districts, Westland has received its due proportion of this maintenance vote:—