asked the Minister for Education if he will state, in respect of the financial year ended 31st March, 1954, the total amount allocated by his Department for (a) primary education, (b) technical education, (c) secondary education, and (d) university education; further, if he will state the average sum spent by his Department on the education of a student undergoing full-time instruction in each category.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Education Expenditure.
The following are the amounts expended by my Department in the financial year ended the 31st March, 1954, in respect of (a) primary education: £8,091,530, (b) technical education: £928,388 and (c) secondary education: £1,420,875. Grants in respect of university education are a charge on the Vote for Universities and Colleges which is accounted for by the Minister for Finance. The amount provided in that Vote for the financial year in question was £791,384.
As regards the second part of the Deputy's question, on the basis of the average attendance of the pupils 1952-53 and of the sum already mentioned by me for primary education plus the amount of £1,071,053 expended on the building of schools which is met out of the Vote for Public Works and Buildings the average sum spent on the education of a primary school pupil was £22 16s. 6d. Similarly, the average sum spent on a secondary school pupil related to the number of recognised pupils in attendance and the expenditure stated was £28 19s. 7d.
Owing to the variety of factors which would have to be taken into account and the impossibility of assessing the incidence of these factors in endeavouring to apportion expenditure as between full-time and part-time pupils in technical schools, I regret I cannot furnish the information which the Deputy has requested in regard to the average sum spent on pupils receiving full-time technical education.
Owing to the fact that similar and other difficulties arise in relation to university education it is likewise not possible to state the average sum spent on full-time students in the universities.
I take it the Minister will agree that the emphasis is on higher education and that less money per head is being spent on primary school children, who are in the majority in this country, and is he not alarmed at that situation?
I am not quite clear of the import of the particular average the Deputy is looking for and I certainly have not sufficient basis here to make any opinions such as the Deputy suggests. I do, however, suggest to the Deputy that there are certain matters, when he has taken on an examination of this kind, that he might wish to pursue and that he will find in the Appropriation Accounts, which are published about 15 months after the end of the appropriate year, and in the Estimates. In a recently published publication, University Statistics, he will find an unlimited amount of material for arithmetical calculations of an interesting kind. I leave him to these documents for the present. I will be glad to assist him in any of his studies in the matter.