64. The new method of paying capitation grants to aided English schools to which I have referred in paragraph 37 was recommended in February, 1931, by the Board of Education which, while of the opinion that the total amount of the grants payable under the old system was inadequate, considered that the assistance accorded in respect of upper classes was out of proportion and recommended a flat rate throughout the school, which should be less than that previously given to upper classes but higher than the old rate for lower classes.
65. The rates finally adopted in respect of 1931, which it is hoped will be increased when circumstances permit, were $40 in respect of boys' schools and $35 in schools for girls. Details of the grants paid at the above rates will be found in Table IV.
66. The figures in paragraph 104 include those paid in 1931 in respect of 1930 attendances.
67. The net result of the abolition of the graded and examination grants and the substitution therefor of the above rates is an increase in the amount actually paid of $28,810.
68. It is hoped that the new rates will remove one incentive to premature promotion. The local schoolboy, no matter whether the school be provided, aided or unaided, is inclined to regard annual promotion as a matter of course and should he fail to secure this, he prefers to leave his old school to get what he supposes to be promotion in another. In his annual report read at King's College prize-giving this year, the Head Master regretted that boys who had failed to gain promotion were unwilling to remain in the same form and try again. Mr. Morris' plea that "failure should stimulate action" was endorsed by His Excellency the Governor, from whose speech delivered at the same function I venture to quote the following salutary advice:— "It is lamentable to think that in many cases it may lead to contentment with a lower standard. I therefore strongly urge parents, guardians and boys to discourage this growing tendency as far as possible.
The efficient English schools of the Colony have more applicants for admission than they can accommodate and need not have recourse to undignified methods of recruiting pupils and if heads of schools admit boys to classes higher than those they were able to reach in their previous schools I regard their action as tantamount to an admission of inferiority in standard.
Parents do not always understand the mysteries of promotion from class to class: the boy is too often content to find himself in a form which is numbered "three" instead of "four" and the evil effects of his mistake only become apparent later.