Appendix II gives a list of loans sanctioned by the Department in 1926 for each Education Authority. The total amount was £625,831, as against £369,284 in the previous year. Of this total, £290,442 was for the erection of new schools, £223,189 for the extension of existing schools, and £40,738 for improvements; £36,680 was for the purchase of sites or buildings, £19,170 for the laying out of playing-fields; and the remainder was for various other objects, including a sum of £4,576 for the purchase and improvement of three transferred schools. The usual list of school properties alienated with the sanction of the Department under Section 36 of the Education (Scotland) Act, 1872, and Paragraph 4 of the Fourth Schedule to the Education (Scotland) Act, 1918, is given in Appendix III. For a detailed estimate of the work done in the primary schools during the session 1925-26, and a discussion of various allied topics, it suffices to refer to the General Reports of His Majesty's Chief Inspectors. Our own remarks will be confined to that part of the school system which is dealt with in the following sections. ADVANCED DIVISIONS. Under this head there can be little doubt that the past year has been one of steady progress in every respect. Education Authorities generally have been anxious to meet the situation, either by instituting advanced divisions for qualified pupils in their own schools, or by arranging for their attendance at centres more amply provided with staff and equipment. As has been pointed out before, the future success of the system will depend largely upon the extent to which parents co-operate with the Authorities in recognising the undoubted advantages offered by these courses, for all young people except the minority who may be suited by natural bent for a less practical form of training and who are prepared to remain at school long enough to pursue it to a fruitful end. The standard of work is steadily rising. If it is disappointing that, owing to the late age at which they qualify, so many pupils leave school before they have the chance of gaining the Day School Certificate (Lower), some consolation may be found in the better quality of the work they accomplish after passing the qualifying stage. Indeed, the extent of the advanced division instruction given in an area should not be judged solely by the number of schools in which two years' and three years' courses are approved, and this is especially true in rural areas which have a large number of very small schools. In such schools, although it is economically difficult to provide even two years' courses, owing to the fact that the children qualify late and leave school as soon as they reach the statutory age, there are admirable one year courses in 63014 A 3 operation, carrying qualified pupils well beyond the stage that they would have reached in the days of " supplementary courses. It is further clear that in the larger schools and in the more populous areas the definite standard set by the requirements of the Day School Certificate (Lower) reacts favourably on the work of those pupils who leave school too soon to be eligible for it. Two of His Majesty's Chief Inspectors draw attention to the disturbing effect which a multiplicity of "leaving dates" may have upon the work. Reclassification may be necessitated by a fresh influx of pupils on two, three, or sometimes as many as four occasions in the year. If, as happens in the larger schools, the newcomers are sufficiently numerous to form a class by themselves, the evil is less serious; but in the smaller schools reclassification is always necessary, and progress is undoubtedly impeded. The difficulty could be avoided by admitting pupils to the advanced division only once a year; but, for the present at least, such a solution cannot be regarded as practicable. Centralisation, where centralisation is feasible, offers the best means of alleviation; for, the larger the numbers in the advanced division, the greater is its capacity for absorbing new material without disturbance. The total average number of pupils enrolled in the advanced divisions of primary schools in the year 1925-26 was 71,816, an increase of 1,846 on the previous year's number. The number of pupils over fourteen years of age at the end of the session in primary schools shows an increase of 1,028. DAY SCHOOL CERTIFICATE (HIGHER). The number of Day School Certificates (Higher) awarded at the close of the session 1925-26 was 2,453. Of the successful candidates, 532 were presented from 138 schools conducted under the Day School Code; 1,896 from 229 schools conducted under the Secondary Schools Regulations; and 25 from seven other schools. In addition, certificates were awarded during the session to 141 candidates who continued their education after satisfactorily completing a three years' course, but were afterwards forced by circumstances to leave school before completing the Leaving Certificate course. The decrease of 162 in the total number of certificates awarded at the end of 1925-26 as compared with the figure for the preceding year is partly due to the fact that in 1924-25 certificates were awarded to many pupils who decided after all to continue their education and who returned to school in the following session. This year the school authorities were more successful in ascertaining the intentions of their pupils, and there was a satisfactory decrease in the number of candidates improperly presented. The total number of schools from which candidates were presented increased from 345 in 1925 to 374 in 1926. A satisfactory feature of the figures for 1926 is an increase of 34 in the number of schools conducted under the Code which presented pupils for the certificate. On the whole, the performance of the candidates from Code schools compared very favourably with that of secondary school pupils who were unable to complete a secondary course. For many of the latter one or other of the practical courses of an advanced division would clearly have been more suitable than the linguistic type of course which they had followed without conspicuous success in the secondary school. Some account of the subjects professed by candidates for this certificate may be of interest. English (including history and geography) was taken by all, and mathematics (including arithmetic, algebra and geometry) by all except 17, who took arithmetic only. Drawing was taken by 97 per cent. of the candidates, science by 96 per cent., French by 89 per cent., and Latin by 19 per cent. German, Gaelic, Spanish and Greek were also professed. These figures show clearly that the schools. are still reluctant to break away from the traditional" intermediate" curriculum. The majority of the "linguistic " candidates would probably be found to have come from secondary schools in the large towns, or from secondary and "higher grade" schools in the country areas, where as yet little has been done to introduce a practical group into the curriculum as an alternative to the foreign languages which they have always taught. It is the advanced divisions of schools conducted under the Code that have been foremost in providing instruction in subjects which give a practical bias to the curriculum and, though the percentage of pupils who professed these subjects is still small, we are confident that it will rapidly grow. Technical subjects (benchwork, woodwork, educational handwork, engineering-drawing) were taken by 9 per cent. of the candidates presented; commercial subjects (shorthand, typewriting, bookkeeping, commercial arithmetic) by 8 per cent., and domestic subjects (cookery, laundry, needlework, dressmaking, housewifery) by 4 per cent. Other subjects offered were rural science, natural history, and navigation. DAY SCHOOL CERTIFICATE (LOWER). This certificate, which testifies to the successful completion of an advanced division course of two years' duration, was first awarded in October, 1924. By the end of December, 1925, certificates had been issued to 8,720 pupils, of whom 8.382 were presented during the calendar year 1925. Records for the year 1926 show an increase of 1,259 in the number of certificates issued, the total being 9,641. The number of schools presenting candidates has risen from 696 in 1925 to 830 in 1926. The variety of subjects professed shows that the schools have been ready to avail themselves of the latitude of choice permitted under the Code. English and either mathematics or arithmetic were taken by all candidates. Next in favour came drawing (85 per cent.), science (69 per cent.), benchwork (43 per 63014 A 4 cent.), needlework and dressmaking (39 per cent.), cookery and laundrywork (35 per cent.), French (19 per cent.) and commercial subjects (11 per cent.). Other subjects offered were navigation, gardening, German, Latin, Spanish and Gaelic. PRACTICAL INSTRUCTION. Appendix VII shows the number of schools in which provision was made for the teaching of the various subjects, and the number of pupils who took them. A comparison of these figures with those of the two previous years marks in a most satisfactory way the progress made in the development of advanced divisions. The striking advance noted last year in the provision made for the teaching of science is carried further; the subject was taught in 783 primary schools, as compared with 751 in 1924-25 and 412 in 1923-24, and the number of pupils who took it was 61,478, as compared with 56,095 and 33,370 in the two previous years respectively. Benchwork and the domestic science subjects also show a good increase. decline in the popularity of rural subjects (gardening and agriculture) and of navigation is the only disappointing feature. In the schools conducted under the Secondary Schools Regulations, the amount of practical instruction given has been generally well maintained or even increased. THE OUTPUT OF THE PRIMARY SCHOOLS. A Appendix VIII classifies the output of the primary schools according to the pupils' attainments at the time of leaving, i.e., according to the extent to which they had progressed beyond, or fallen short of, the stage qualifying for enrolment in an advanced division. It will be seen that, of the 93,553 pupils who left primary schools or primary departments (excluding the 13,452 mentioned in column 9), 77,983 (a little over 83 per cent.) had either reached this stage or advanced beyond it, while 15,570 (nearly 17 per cent.) had failed to attain it. Of the "qualified pupils, 12,670 left school before they had completed one full year in an advanced division, while 32,435 had completed one, two or more years. The remainder, 32,878, were transferred to schools conducted under the Secondary Schools Regulations, where they were enrolled for the Leaving Certificate course or, in some cases, for an alternative post-qualifying course. SECONDARY EDUCATION. " The rapid annual increase in the attendance at secondary schools, which was such a striking feature of the period from the beginning of the war up to and including the year 1922-23, showed signs of abatement in 1923-24, and in 1924-25 was found to have ceased altogether, the average enrolment for that year being slightly below the number of the year before. The latest recorded figure again gives the curve an upward bend. In the year 1925-26 the total average enrolment in schools conducted under the Secondary Schools Regulations, excluding pupils of the primary (junior or preparatory) departments but including those in separately organised advanced divisions, was 78,086, as compared with 76,153 in the previous year, an increase of 1,933. The increase in the number of pupils over 14 years of age at the end of the session in these schools was 994. The average number of pupils on the roll at each stage in the last two years may be compared as follows: 6th year 1st year. 2nd year. 3rd year. 4th year. 5th year. and beyond. 1923-24 30,944 20,758 14,202 5,850 4,111 2,330 1924-25 1925-26 30,023 20,419 13,000 6,135 4,295 2,281 (73.41) (55.48) 4,654 (2,503) The figures in brackets indicate the percentage which each number bears to the number at the preceding stage in the preceding year, and may be taken as an approximate index of the survival of pupils from one stage to the next of the course on which they enter. It will be seen that the last year's record shows at least a distinct improvement in this respect, though the wastage from year to year, on which we have so often commented, remains far too great. The extent of the wastage may be viewed again in the table printed in Appendix IX, which traces the history of four groups of original entrants, showing what percentage of these survive to the later years of the secondary course. An increase in the number of new enrolments is not necessarily a subject for congratulation it may well be that, as already indicated under the head of Advanced Divisions, and repeatedly stated in previous reports, a large proportion of the new entrants would have found in the advanced divisions of primary schools a training better suited both to their natural bent and to the length of time that they are likely to continue at school. On the other hand, it is to be noted that, of the total number of pupils in the secondary schools in 1925-26, there were 7,758 formally registered as following separately organised advanced division courses. In 1923-24 the number was only 4,929. The accentuated wastage that occurs. between the third and the fourth year is caused partly by the departure of pupils who have successfully completed alternative courses of this kind, and partly by the frequency with which pupils relinquish a typical secondary course at that stage. In the interests of all concerned, it is essential that useful and attractive alternatives should be provided for the stereotyped secondary courses. Whether they should be in the secondary schools themselves or in separate centres is a matter that must be determined by circumstances 63014 A 5 |