§ MR. SEXTONI beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether it is a fact that (with the exception of the Official Training College of the National Education Board), the Training Colleges and all the Schools in connection with the Board are annually inspected and reported upon by Official Inspectors, none of whom are members of the staffs of the institutions on which it is their duty to report; whether the Official Training College is treated exceptionally in this respect, being reported upon, not by the Ordinary Inspectors of the Board, but by four officials who sign their Report as Superintendents; whether the "Superintendents'" Report for 1887 and 1888 contains the following passage:—
The management of the College is intrusted to four Professors. The Professors lecture the Queen's Scholars, and exercise a supervision over the domestic establishment";whether the "Professors," whose duties are thus described, are the Superintendents themselves who thus report upon their own work; and whether, if so, he will call the attention of the National Education Board to the desirability, in the interests of the Public Service, of putting an end to so anomalous an arrangement?
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURThe arrangement for the inspection of the Denominational Training Colleges and their practising schools are as indicated by the hon. Member. It is likewise the case that the Official Training College, with its practising schools, was treated for a period of upwards of half a century in the special manner referred to; but in accordance with the adoption of our proposals of last year, placing the Official Training College in all respects on an equality of treatment with the Denominational Training Colleges, it will henceforth be inspected and reported upon by the same head Inspector who has charge of those colleges.