TUESDAY, 4TH SEPTEMBER, 1917. (At Perth.)

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Present:

B. L. Clarkson, Esq. (Acting Chairman). H. H. Paynter, Esq., | F. E. Venn, Esq.

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CECIL ROLLO PATON ANDREWS, Director of Education, sworn and examined:

10323. By Mr. CLARKSON: We want to get some information from your with regard to the steps that are being taken in various educational matters, particularly in relation to agricultural districts. With regard to country schools, are you taking special steps to cope with the difficulties of supplying schools in the scattered parts of the State's settlement?—If we can get enough children together to provide a probably average attendance of eight, we supply a teacher and the necessary furniture and apparatus, but we do not build a room for that number of children. If there is a sufficient prospect of a permanent average attendance of ten, we build then. If there is no prospect even of an average attendance of eight, then we subsidise the people. If they can get a teacher, we give them £7 a head for each child in average attendance. If they can get five children, they will thus get £35 towards securing a governess. We have to be satisfied that that governess is sufficient from them to have at least £30 clear after paying her board and lodging. So long as the residents give board and lodging to a teacher for teaching, say, five children, they would not have to pay anything towards her salary if she is prepared to go there for board and lodging, because the department would contribute the sum of £35. These are assisted schools. If necessary, we consider a single family a school. If there is a single family with three children they can get £21 towards securing someone to teach their children. If there are two groups of children not large enough in either case for a single school, we make half-time schools between the two. The teacher can either take the schools on alternate days or spend two days at one and three at the other, or vice versa. The teacher can also taken them in alternate weeks if they are some distance apart, or the travelling affords some difficulty. That is the matter for the district inspector to decide as to how the time is divided. Such a teacher gets a small additional allowance for forage when travelling.

10324. Have you in any way considered the question of travelling teachers further than you have already gone? It has been brought under our notice that there are still some children in the State who cannot get any education?—The question has been considered several times. The State which has gone in for this sort of thing most is Queensland. There they have a considerable number of big country stations, upon which there are isolated men, such as boundary riders and the like scattered about in various places. In that State the department has put a teacher in some central position and given him a supply of horses and a van, and has sent him round in various directions from the centre in which he lives. I understand that in this Queensland country a man can keep horses very much more cheaply than he can here. The department supplies six to eight horses, and also a residence in the central town of the district in which the teacher lives, and also provides a good sized paddock in which he can paddock the horses he is not actually using. This teacher may go fortnightly or every three weeks in one direction, and then change his horses and go off in another direction. Even there, it is a fairly expensive arrangement, but in this State to put down a teacher in a central district and give him eight horses and allow for the problem of feeding them, would render the cost prohibitive. The other point about it is this, that very few families get more than four visits in the year, and a visit does not, as a rule, last more than from one to two days. Whether a family gets a very great deal of benefit out of say four days schooling in the year, seems to be open to question. There is no doubt that some of our country in this State is very difficult to travel over in the winter time. We have instructed our inspectors, if ever they come to a district in which they think a travelling school teacher could be put into operation, to inquire into and report on the matter. In each case that we have inquired into such a question, we have been able to give something more than that, either in the nature of a half school or an assisted school. We know that occasionally there is an isolated family in the State that we have not been able to touch up to the present.

10325. By Mr. VENN: do you intend to do anything in regard to the East Woobin district?—I cannot tell without looking at the files what steps are being taken in that connection.

10326. By Mr. CLARKSON: What steps are being taken, if any, in regard to agricultural education in the State primary schools?—Every month we issue to every teacher in the State a copy of the Circular. This year we have put in a supplement specially dealing with nature study and elementary agriculture. The march number contains a series of about 40 lessons with suggested experiments, all in connection with elementary agricultural work. Each month a certain section of this series is dealt with, and a few suggestions made in regard to the sections