Sessional_Paper_1931 — Page 239

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at the following estimate-(112 × 40)+(28 × 40)= $5,600 as the annual cost of the Instructors for the evening classes.

103. We now give a very rough estimate of the annual initial cost of the Technical School-

Principal £850 × 16.66..

Woodwork Instructor

Add travelling allowance @ $50 a month for 7 months Graduate teachers in the Junior Technical School

Building construction Teacher; 3 hours a week for 40 weeks

@ $7 an hour

Evening Class Instructors

$14,161

4,800

250

3,600

840

5,600

$29,251

104. The Director of Education informs us that it is just possible that a school building will be available in the Eastern District and that this might serve the purposes of the Junior Technical School and for some of the evening classes. For such evening classes as could be most conveniently held at the Taikoo and Kowloon Docks accommodation would we understand be provided by the companies concerned. The Technical Institute classes are already held in the University, and we have already referred to the Taikoo Professor's suggestion that the Technical School might possibly make use of the University's metal workshops. The University would probably be willing to lend the use of its lecture rooms and its laboratories (under safeguards) and we have received from the Professor of Electrical Engineering a suggestion which involves making the University's lecture-rooms, drafting-rooms, laboratories etc., annually available for the further and technical education of appren- tices. Government school buildings might also be made available, though the priority of the claim of the Technical Institute to the use of these buildings would have to be recognized. We should not at any rate recommend the erection of any new building, until the Technical School has justified itself and the Principal is here to advise on the lines of the new building. The only possible expenditure which might have to be incurred before the scheme could be started might be the renting of a house for the Junior Technical School. If we assume that $200 a month might be required for this purpose and add a sum of $1,549 for furniture and equipment and other unforeseen expenses the estimate of initial expenditure must be raised to $31,000. We do not in fact anticipate that the cost of the Technical School during the first five years of its existence would exceed $35,000 a year, which at the present rate of exchange is less than £1,750.

105. We feel that the scheme might be initiated on the basis of the following programme:

(a) Bring out the Principal to a building adapted for the purposes of the Junior Technical School and for evening classes organized either in this building or elsewhere.

(b) If the undertaking is successful both as regards the Junior Technical School and the Department for the Further and Technical Education of Apprentices, then retain the Principal and put up the necessary building. (c) If the undertaking is successful as regards the Department for the Further and Technical Education of Apprentices but fails as regards the Junior Technical School, then dispense with the Principal; close the Junior Technical School, and increase the funds at the disposal of the Director of Education so as to enable him to extend the present Technical Institute Evening Classes by the inclusion in that organization of the work in which the Department for the Further and Technical Education of Apprentices has succeeded.

(d) If the Junior Technical School is successful but the Department for the Further and Technical Education of Apprentices is a failure, the Principal could, if necessary, be sent home and the Junior Technical school continued under a less expensive headmaster appointed from the Education Department.