MR. LYULPH STANLEYasked the Vice President of the Council, Whether, where in the neighbourhood of any Board School the School Board are actively engaged in supplying an existing deficiency of accommodation, the Education Department claim that, before they recognise the right conceded by the footnote to Article 17c of the Code, viz. that the accommodation of the Board School shall for the present be calculated according to the usual rate, they have the right to annex this further condition, not existing in the Code, that there shall be no vacant places in any neighbouring Voluntary School, or that they may exercise a discretion to withhold the right given by the footnote in consequence of the existence of vacant places in neighbouring Voluntary Schools?
§ MR. MUNDELLAThe Education Department claim no such right as the hon. Member supposes, nor does the foot-note in the Code to which he refers give a school board any such right as he seems to claim. By that foot-note the Department undertakes to endeavour to have, at least, eight square feet of space for each child in average attendance. But this is so admittedly insufficient that board schools are planned and erected with public loans to supply nine or ten square feet per child. When we are satisfied that there is an actual deficiency of accommodation in any part of a district, and that the Board are actively engaged in supplying it, we allow all the public elementary schools in the neighbourhood of the proposed new school to be filled up to eight square feet to meet the immediate necessity. The only right the Department claim is that of deciding when and in what cases school boards or school managers may be allowed to admit more children than the number for which a school was originally built. The sole object we have in view is to prevent the over-crowding of school-rooms, and to preserve the health both of teachers and scholars.
MR. LYULPH STANLEY, in consequence of the answer he had received, gave Notice that on the Education Vote he would move—
That the power claimed by the Education Department to consider the existence of vacant 1804 places in neighbouring voluntary schools, before recognising the right conferred by the Education Code on School Boards of temporarily reckoning their school accommodation on the usual basis, is unauthorised by the Education Code, is unjust to parents as tending to deprive them of the power of freely selecting schools for their children, is a violation of the spirit of section 97 of 'The Education Act, 1870,' and is a hindrance to the work of Elementary Education.