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REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE.
(Tables I, II, IV, VI, VII, and VIII.)
1. After deducting the school fees received, the total nett expenditure on education was $243,362 ($234,678 in 1917).
2. School and Technical Institute fees amounting to $100,206 were collected ($96,711 in 1917). In addition $4,253 fees were remitted to free scholars ($3,844.75 in 1917).
3. The cost of the Government Schools is compared in Table I with the average of preceding years.
CLASSIFICATION OF SCHOOLS.
4. These are divided into :--
(a) Schools exempted from liability to registration and inspection under the Education Ordinance of 1913. (b) Controlled Schools, subject to the provisions of the Ordinance.
SCHOOLS TO WHICH THE ORDINANCE DOES NOT APPLY. GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS.
(Table 1.)
5. Queen's College. Mr. T. K. Dealy, the Head Master, retired on pension in May, and was succeeded by Mr. B. Tanner.
6. At the end of the year, 7 masters of the Staff were absent, and their places taken by substitutes including 5 English Mistresses. Women teachers have previously shown their capacity to teach Chinese beginners: here they were more highly tested, as some of them were in charge of boys of 16 to 18 years of age, and in the Upper School. The experiment proved very successful. Nor is it surprising, when it is remembered that Chinese boys do not show the wavering attention and do not suffer from the hardly controllable high spirits of our youth at home. Women teachers seem well qualified to replace men within certain limits. But they cannot act as Heads of boys' schools: they cannot assist with the games; it is undesirable that they should be put in charge of big Indian boys.
7. The numbers at Queen's College have steadily declined for many years. 1918 shows at last an increase of 30 to 579, in spite of the epidemic of cerebro-spinal fever.
8. During the year a system of medical examination has been instituted, under which a complete medical history of each pupil will gradually be accumulated. Pressure of work in the Medical Department has not permitted this innovation to be carried to a point from which firm conclusions can be drawn, but it seems that
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