ELEMENTARY EDUCATION BILL—THE AMENDMENTS.—QUESTION. (Hansard, 7 July 1876)

§ VISCOUNT SANDON

Sir, I had intended to lay upon the Table of the House some proposed Amendments on the part of the Government to the main part of the Bill—that is to say, to the leading part of it, which is concerned with the employment and education of children. As the Amendments do not affect the principles of the measure in any way, and are mostly the carrying out of possible alterations which I sketched in my speech on the Second Reading, and are very much in accordance with Amendments which have now been for some days on the Paper, placed there by hon. Members on both sides of the House of great experience in these matters, I should not have thought it necessary to make any statement on the part of the Government with regard to those Amendments. But as my right hon. Friend expressed a wish to know what points they bear upon, I shall be happy to give a rapid sketch of the changes which the Government propose to make in this leading part of the Bill. The House will remember—and I must apologize for occupying its attention for a few minutes, so as to make clear the gist of the Amendments—that though in a most decided manner the opinion of hon. Members was shown on the Second Reading to be against the universal enforcement of bye-laws for direct compulsion all over the country, still a very general feeling appeared to prevail that it was desirable to have some statement in the Bill of the parent's duty to provide instruction for his children, and various Amendments have been placed upon the Paper bearing upon this point. The Government see no objection to meet that general wish, and therefore propose to place, as the opening clause to the Bill, a new clause declaratory of the parent's duty in the following words:— It shall be the duty of the parent of every child above the age of five years to cause such child to receive efficient elementary instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic, and if such parent fail to perform such duty, he shall be liable to such orders and penalties as are provided by this Act. The next alteration we propose is in the commencement of Clause 7, which will read as follows:— If the parent of any child above the age of five years, who is under this Act prohibited from, being taken into employment, habitually and without reasonable excuse, neglects to pro- 1143 vide efficient elementary instruction for his child"— The rest of the clause to remain as it is. Further, with regard to the certificate of attendance which enables the child to get out to work, we find that, unintentionally, by only allowing attendance to count at a public elementary school, we were inflicting a great hardship upon the children who attend other public schools—that is to say, schools not kept for private profit, which are efficient, but which are not public elementary. We, therefore, propose to take power to the Education Department to inspect, as often as they think fit, any such schools; to insist, if the schools wish to count as efficient, upon proper registers of regular attendance being kept, and upon other matters; and that if these schools are certified by the Department to be efficient, attendance at these schools shall be allowed to count for the certificate. It is needless to observe that we cannot allow attendance to count at any school which we do not certify ourselves to be efficient. The next change proposed is one to which we have been very much led by observing the important Amendments placed upon the Paper by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for West Sussex and by my hon. Friends and Colleagues the two Members for Liverpool, as well as by other hon. Members. They propose that Town Councils and Boards of Guardians should be obliged to appoint a committee to administer this Act. The Government consider the suggestion a very good one, although they could not accept exactly the Amendments proposed. But I shall lay on the Table a clause which will oblige Town Councils and Boards of Guardians to appoint a committee, to be called the "School Attendance Committee," to be composed only of members of their own bodies, and in the case of Boards of Guardians to follow exactly the analogy of the Union Assessment Committees, which have been found to work very well. Then, with regard to the local committees which these bodies have the power of appointing if they think fit, we propose to confine their duties to giving such information and aid to the School Attendance Committees of the Boards of Guardians as they may require, and to forbid them to prosecute, to pass bye-laws, or to spend money on their own account. There is one other 1144 Amendment of some importance, which I sketched in my speech on the Second Reading, to which I must now allude; but as the subject is somewhat a complicated one, I fear the Amendment itself cannot be in the hands of hon. Members before Monday at the earliest. I allude to the subject of industrial schools. The Government will make a proposal to enable the erection of day industrial schools under strict provisions which shall prevent their being used for any except the class for whom they are absolutely necessary. I would wish to be clearly understood, of course, not to tie my hands, on the part of the Government, in any way as to not bringing in any further Amendments that we may think fit, or as to accepting the Amendments which are brought before the House by hon. Members on either side. But I felt, as my right hon. Friend opposite desired it, that it would be for his convenience and that of the House that I should give this short explanation of the Amendments to the main part of the Bill which the Government will propose.