The Short Title of this Act shall be “The Education Reserves Act, 1877.”

In the construction of this Act the following words and expressions, if not inconsistent with the context, shall have the meanings hereby assigned to them respectively, that is to say,—

The several Acts and Ordinances or parts thereof the Short Titles of which are set forth in the Schedule hereto are hereby repealed to the extent in the said Schedule mentioned respectively, and all other Acts or Ordinances which are inconsistent with or repugnant to this Act, but such repeal shall not affect any lease, contract, agreement, or security of any kind granted, entered into, or held in respect of any lands mentioned in or affected by any such Act or Ordinance.

One-fourth part of all education reserves which have been heretofore made in and for any province or provincial district, and vested in any Education Board or other body, and of all other such reserves heretofore made in and for any province or provincial district, but which have not been granted to or vested in the Superintendent of any province under "The Public Reserves Act, 1854,” or otherwise granted to or vested in any such Board or other body, shall be set apart specially as an endowment for secondary education within the provincial district for which such reserves and lands were originally made and set apart, and the remainder of such reserves and lands shall be set apart specially as an endowment for primary education within such district.

The Chairman of the Education Board of each education district constituted under “The Education Boards Act, 1876,” and the Commissioner of Crown Lands for the provincial district within which such education district or the greater portion of it is comprised, shall be arbitrators jointly, with full power and authority to equitably apportion such reserves in the proportions aforesaid.

If the Chairman of any such Board shall refuse or neglect to act as an arbitrator, the Board shall appoint another of its members or some other suitable person to be such arbitrator; and if the arbitrators appointed hereunder for any district shall not be able to agree, the Judge of the Supreme Court within whose judicial district the whole or the greater part of such district is, shall appoint an umpire.

Every such award shall be made on or before the thirty-first day of March next, or at such later period as the Governor may determine, and the Governor shall cause an abstract of the division and apportionment made by any such award to be gazetted.

Every award made in respect of any one or more of the matters submitted to such arbitrators or the umpire under this Act shall be final and conclusive, and the Minister may award to the several arbitrators and umpires (if any) appointed hereunder such reasonable remuneration for their services as such Board may recommend, and the amount of such remuneration shall be a charge upon the revenues derivable from the education reserves in respect of which the services have been rendered, and shall be paid thereout.

Nothing in this Act contained shall affect any lands granted to or vested in any Education Board, body corporate, or trustees by any Act of the General Assembly, or by any provincial Ordinance or Act now in force, for any special educational purpose, or for or on behalf of any particular school or schools, or reserved or set apart in a similar way for any of the purposes aforesaid.

The reserves to be apportioned hereunder shall vest in the School Commissioners to be appointed in each provincial district respectively, as hereinafter provided, subject to any leases or contracts theretofore lawfully entered into relating to the same.

For every provincial district there shall be five School Commissioners, who shall be appointed in the following manner:—

Three of such Commissioners shall be appointed by the Governor: and

Two by the Board; but in the Provincial Districts of Wellington, Canterbury, and Otago, each Board in such district shall appoint one Commissioner.

Such Commissioners, with their successors in office, shall be and become a body corporate by the name of “The School Commissioners for the [naming it] Provincial District,” for the purposes of this Act, and, subject hereto, shall hold office for a period of three years from their appointment.

Any person may be appointed a Commissioner who under the said Act would be eligible to be a member of an Education Board for the district in respect of which he is appointed, and any person who would be ineligible to be or continue such member shall also be ineligible to be or continue a Commissioner.

If any Commissioner shall die or resign his office or become ineligible as aforesaid, the Governor or the Board may appoint another person in his stead, as the case may require.

A notification of all such appointments and of any other appointments of such Commissioners shall be gazetted from time to time.

The Commissioners shall keep full and true accounts of all moneys received by them by virtue of this Act, and the same shall be paid into such bank in the colony as they may think fit.

The Governor may from time to time make regulations for the inspection and audit of the accounts of the Commissioners, and may require, from each, reports as to administration of this Act, as he thinks fit.

The School Commissioners and every Board may let for any period not exceeding twenty-one years any lands vested in them or it respectively under this Act, subject nevertheless to the trusts and conditions contained in any instrument by which such lands have been vested in such Commissioners or in such Board, at such rents and on such terms and conditions as may be thought fit.

The School Commissioners in each district and every Board may from time to time appropriate or set apart any of the education reserves, or lands vested in them or it, or any portion or portions thereof, as a site or sites for public schools.

The Governor may from time to time reserve any waste lands of the Crown, or any lands taken under “The New Zealand Settlements Act, 1863,” or any Act amending the same or construed therewith, for school sites.

Such lands shall be granted to the Board of the education district in which they are situate in trust for the purpose for which they have been reserved, and all lands hereafter reserved as sites for schools under any Waste Lands Act, or other Act for the time being in force in any district authorizing the making of such reserves, shall be granted to the Board of such district in trust for the purpose for which they have been reserved.

All lands heretofore reserved as sites for schools in and for any education district, and vested in the Education Board of such district or other person or body, shall immediately upon the first constitution of the Board under the said Act, for the education district in which such lands are situated, be vested in such last-mentioned Board, subject to any leases or contracts theretofore lawfully entered into relating to the same.

With the consent of the Minister in each case, the Board may sell or exchange school sites where it may appear advantageous to do so; but in case of a sale the money received shall, as soon as conveniently may be, be invested in the purchase of another suitable site for a school, or may be invested in the purchase of freehold land to be held by the Board for educational purposes.

The Governor may from time to time, by Proclamation, provisionally reserve any waste lands of the Crown, or any lands taken under “The New Zealand Settlements Act, 1863,” or any Act amending the same or construed therewith, as endowments for primary and for secondary education within the provincial district in which such lands are, subject however to the following conditions:—

A full and complete description of every provisional reserve, and the purpose for which it shall have been dedicated, shall be gazetted.

Copies of every such Proclamation, with plans and description of each provisional reserve, shall be laid upon the table of each House of the General Assembly within fourteen days after the publication thereof, or if the Assembly shall not then be in session, then within ten days after the commencement of the next session thereof.

The two Houses may, by resolution, alter, vary, or modify the area of any provisional reserve as they shall think fit, or they may nullify the same by resolution.

A copy of every such resolution shall forthwith after the passing thereof be transmitted by the Clerk of each House to the Colonial Secretary, who shall without delay gazette the same.

In the absence of any resolution of both Houses with respect to any such provisional reserve, the said reserve shall forthwith after the termination of the session be proclaimed by the Governor as not having been disapproved.

In the event of a resolution of both Houses altering, varying, or modifying the area of any provisional reserve, the Governor may, if he shall think fit, proclaim the same in its amended form.

The land or any part thereof comprised in any provisional reserve shall cease to be a reserve in the event of a resolution of both Houses disapproving the same, and such land may then be dealt with as it might have been if it had never been proclaimed as a reserve.

From and. after the date of any Proclamation issued under either of subsections five or six hereof, the land comprised therein shall be deemed to be and shall be reserved for the purposes in such Proclamation mentioned; and as soon as conveniently may be thereafter the land mentioned therein shall be granted to the School Commissioners for the provincial district in which such lands are situated, in trust for the purpose for which reserved.

In order to provide an endowment for primary education in the North Island, at least five per centum of the waste lands in each district therein open for sale on the first day of January, one thousand eight hundred and seventy-eight, and a like percentage out of all land over which the Native title may thereafter be extinguished in each such district, and which shall from time to time be acquired or purchased by or on behalf of the Crown shall be reserved and set apart as an endowment for the maintenance of primary education within the education district in which such land is situated.

All revenues derived by the School Commissioners from the reserves vested in them shall, after the deduction therefrom of the expenses of the management and administration thereof, be disposed of as follows:—

The revenues derived from reserves set apart for primary education shall be handed over to the Education Board or Boards of the provincial district in proportion to the population in each education district as determined from time to time by the census taken under any Act for the time being in force regulating the making or taking of such census.

The revenues derived from reserves set apart for secondary education shall be appropriated by the Commissioners for the exclusive advancement of secondary education in the several educational districts wholly or partially included in the provincial districts in proportion to the population in each such education district or part of a district, to be ascertained and determined in the manner before provided.

Provided always that no school shall be entitled to any grant unless it be a public school under the Education Act passed or to be passed in the present session of Parliament, or a school established or governed under any Act of the Assembly, or a school established under the Canterbury College in the Provincial District of Canterbury.