Sessional_Paper_1908 — Page 413

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REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE.

6. The revenue collected by the Department amounts to $18.780.50 an increase of $4,000 on last year's figures. The District Schools are again the chief contributors, Saiyingpun School alone shewing an increase of $2,500. The Belilios Public School which shewed a decrease in fees last year has now exceeded the 1905 tctal by over $200. The fees at the English Schools and the Lower Grade Anglo-Chinese Schools have with one exception decreased. A comparative statement of the revenue collected during the last 6 years is given in Table II.

7. The expenditure on Education including Queen's College was $184,028.00 or 3.19 % o the total expenditure of the Colony. Table III gives the proportion of the total expenditure of the Colony devoted to Education during the past 12 years.

NUMBER AND CLASSIFICATION OF SCHOOLS AND PUPILS.

8. The number of Government and Grant Schools in the Colony in the year under review is 79 as compared with 85 in 1906. The decrease is accounted for by the closing of 4 inefficient Vernacular Grant Schools by the Government, ¿e., Nos. 16, 65, 67 and 71 and the voluntary closing of 2 schools, the Cathedral School No. 10 and the Sacred Heart School No. 23 by the Roman Catholic Mission. The Cathedral School pupils now form the greater portion of the Chinese division at St. Joseph's College. The average attendance was 5,924 as against 5,496, a substantial increase in both Government and Grant Schools.

The Berlin Foundling House No. 17 and the Training Home for Girls No. 20 are again Upper Grade Schools. The Anglo-Indian (Government) School remains in the Lower Grade as before.

Table IV gives the number of Schools, Government and Grant, and the number of pupils attending at each. It also shows the Grade to which they belong.

9. Table V shews the fluctuations in the average attendance from 1895 up to the present time. As in past years the figures in the case of private schools represent the maximum monthly enrolinent, it being quite impossible to obtain correct figures shewing the average attendance. It will be seen, however, that there is an upward trend in the numbers under instruction in the Colony. At the Government and Grant English Schools the attendance has risen from 3,350 to 3,569 and at the Vernacular Schools from 2,146 in 1906 to 2,355. The private English Scho is shew an increase of 500 pupils and the private Vernacular Schools an increase of 441. At all the Vernacular Privat Schools modern text books compiled on the lines of the Japanese school books are now in use.

The pupils attending Private English Day Schools have decreased by 86, those attending Night Schools have increased from 494 to 826 almost double last year's number. There are now 32 night schools as compared with 26 in 1906.

10. Table VI gives the proportion of girls to boys under instruction during the year.

GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS.

11. Table I gives details of the nature of the Government Schools and of the attendance thereat as compared with the same statistics in 1906. Reports on the work of each School

ou appear in Appendix A.

12. The average attendance of pupils in Government Schools (excluding Queen's College) is 1,153 this year as compared with 927 in 1906. There are 761 boys and 392 girls in attendance at Government Schools and of these 1,036 are in the Upper Grade and 117 in the Lower Grade. The Upper Grade shews an increase of 33% on last year and the Lower Grade a decrease of 22 %.