> ‘ Wednesday, March 27, 1968

here in our own Province, while pre—school education is not a compulsory part of our program, still education in this area is provided through nine private kinder— gartens, privately operating kindergartens, and roughly 336 are getting education at this level at the present time. And, as you know, the vocational and technical institutions, community schools, government retraining programs, correspondence pro- grams, adu t education courses have brought education to many, many Prince Ed- ward Islanders who, in the earlier days under the more formal and more stereotypes of education, did not have this opportunity. You may be surprised. Mr. Speaker, to know that 140 people in this Province at the present time are getting instruction through correspondence courses and many of these are adults. As a matter of fact, in Grade 8 there are 11 students. They are 19 years of age and over. In Grade 9,

twelve students nineteen years and over and in Grade 10, eighteen students who are getting education in the correspondence form.

To emphasize the fact that adults are taking opportunity of these courses is evidenced in the fact that we have people forty to fifty and over in the correspon- dence program, Mr. Speaker. Now, this provision of additional educational facilities throughout the country has been accompanied by a phenominal increase in educa- tional costs. In the current fiscal year, total educational expenditures are estimated at 4.5 billions of dollars, an increase of 97% in the last five years alone. In our Province, we are anticipating. for the coming fiscal year, an expenditure of $12,— 030.759 on education and I believe its correct to say, Mr. Speaker, it would have been much higher than this had the finances of the Province permitted. We had hoped at one stage to get a larger vote but the axe of the Budget Committee fell on us and the scalpel of the Treasury Board took over after that and we ended up, as I said, with the Budget of something over twelve millions of dollars. As we’re all noted, education now and in the foreseeable future will be the “number one” item in Provincial Budgets and across the country accounting, on the average, for about 30% of budgets of governments. In our own Province 25.6% of the operating budget is spent on education. It may be interesting to note where we stand with respect to other Provinces in this regard. I have a few statistics, Mr. Speaker, that show that Newfoundland will spend an estimated 28% on education in the next fiscal year; Nova Scotia, 34.8%: Manitoba, 33.8%; Saskatchewan. 32%; Alberta. the same and British Columbia, 32%; Our neighboring Province of New Brunswick is 27% and ours is 25.6% so, although we still lag behind the Canadian Provinces. Mr. Speaker, I think we all recognize that, through the years. the legislators in this Province have been recognizing the increase in need of education and have been apportioning extra

dollars towards this purpose and I’m quite confident that this trend will continue in the future.

L. George Dewar: Ordinary expense?

Hon. Gordon L. Bennett: Ordinary. Of this amount, Mr. Speaker, elementary. and secondary schooling receive the lion’s share of the expenditure. On the national scene about 65%, and in our own Province on elementary and secondary schooling We’re spending approximately 75%. The proportion spent on elementary and second- ary education in Canada has dropped from 74% five years ago and will continue to fall. On the other hand, the share going to post-secondary education is rismg and will continue to rise as larger numbers seek this phase of education. Four years ago, Mr. Speaker, in this Province, our education budget called for an expenditure of 5.6 millions of dollars out of a total budget of 25.9 million. This situation, as we .all recognize, is world wide. I noticed in the report that the Leader of the Opposmon presented following his trip to Uganda that in that country 2.5% of'their budget is spent on education. I read in a newspaper the other day that in a city in the Mari- times about the size of Charlottetown the education costs are rismg at a chaotic rate and this situation exists everywhere, Mr. Speaker. I was rather surprised to read through the newspapers that the Mayor of this City and 1.118.001.1110] placed the blame for finances in the City of Charlottetown on the Provmc1al Government. I think, Mr. Speaker, this is a rather childish approach to a problem that effects all levels of Government, all levels of Government everywhere and I think that we and the City have to stand squarely on our own two feet ‘wrth respect to. our ex- penditures and not blame some other body for sins of omisswn or commisswn: I would hope, Mr. Speaker, from the press reports that the people of this Province don’t get the impression that we, as a Government, don’t assist the educational efforts of this City. Actually, we contribute about 55% of the annual operating

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