§ MR. M. HEALY (Cork)I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the effect of the new rule (No. 8) of the Intermediate Education Board in Ireland will be to place a student who happens to pass the junior grade twice in his thirteenth and fourteenth years respectively, in the 269 position that he must then in his fifteenth year enter for the middle grade, though that grade is intended for students in their seventeenth year; whether the rule in question is the result of, and the necessary consequence of, the new "preparatory grade" now for the first time initiated, and which is in tended to take the place of the junior grade for the youngest class of students; and whether, as the preparatory grade is not to come into effect for two years, the operation of Rule 8 will be postponed for the same period? The hon. Member at the same time asked the Chief Secretary whether he is aware that No. 8 of the new rules issued by the Board of Intermediate Education in Ireland has caused great dissatisfaction amongst the teachers and pupils concerned, and is likely to work great mischief and injustice; whether under the existing rules it has hitherto been possible for a student to pass in the junior grade four times, i.e., once in each of four different years; whether complaints have reached, him that the new rule which has been issued during the past month, and made retrospective as well as prospective for the past year, has taken teachers and pupils by surprise; and that studies in all schools in Ireland had been conducted on the supposition that the rule which has always hitherto prevailed could not be altered; and whether the Board will re-consider this rule, with a view to postponing its operation for at least two years more?
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURThe Commissioners of Intermediate Education inform me that the fact is as stated in the second paragraph. They have sent no information about the first paragraph. The new rule which has been made, and to which the hon. Member refers, does not come into operation until 1892. I rather gather from the tenor of the question that the hon. Member is under the impression that the rule comes into operation at once.
§ MR. M. HEALYI will ask the right hon. Gentleman to say whether we may take as authoritative the statement he now makes that the rule in question will not come into force in the examination to be held in the course of the month?
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI think I may answer that question decisively in the negative, because the Commissioners inform me the rule will not come into operation till 1892.