HC Deb 26 March 1895 vol 32 cc155-8
MR. J. ROUND (Essex, S.E., Harwich)

I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education, whether he will consider the propriety of omitting section (d) in Clause 48 of the New Code, which excludes from the admission examination to training colleges, candidates who have failed twice.

THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL(Mr. A. H. D. ACLAND, York, W.R., Rotherham)

I am afraid I cannot undertake to alter this provision. If candidates fail on two successive occasions even to pass the admission examination, the fact must be taken to indicate that they are not competent for the teaching profession.

MR. J. SEYMOUR KEAY (Elgin and Nairn)

I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether, as the new Education Code already somewhat extends the area which receives the benefit of the Highland Minute Grant by the inclusion of burghs with less than 10,000 inhabitants, a modified Minute can be laid upon the Table adding, after the words "Inverness, Ross, Argyll, Sutherland, Caithness, and Orkney and Shetland," the amending words "and in the additional parishes of the counties of Elgin, Banff, Aberdeen, Perth, and Dunbarton, recognised as falling within the Highland area by the Trust for Education in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland."

SIR GEORGE TREVELYAN

The provisions of the Code in the selection of certain counties for favourable treatment in respect of Grant are based upon the Act of 1872, in regard to the counties of Inverness, Ross, Argyll, and Orkney and Shetland; Caithness and Sutherland have been included in terms of the Parliamentary Grant (Caithness and Sutherland) Act, 1889. I am not prepared to place a Minute on the Table except with regard to counties indicated by an Act of Parliament.

MR. J. H. JOHNSTONE (Sussex, Horsham)

I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether, as it is stated in the revised instructions issued to Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools, that one of the objects of the alterations made in recent Codes has been to emphasise, by means of a special and graduated grant for discipline and organisation, the importance of conduct and moral training as essential factors of the success and usefulness of a public elementary school, he will reconsider that portion of the Code of 1895 which proposes to make the higher grant for discipline and organisation depend upon provision being made in a school for drill or physical training?

MR. ACLAND

The full description of the object of the Discipline and Organisation Grant will be found in the Code itself (Article 101 b.) It includes a variety of other matters besides those mentioned in the question. When these are looked at as a whole, I do not think that there will be found to be any inconsistency in the requirements made as to drill or physical exercises.

MR. JOHNSTONE

May I ask the right hon. Gentleman if the House will have an opportunity of discussing this part of the Code?

MR. ACLAND

Of course; it may be debated on the Estimates.

MR. J. G. TALBOT (Oxford University)

I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether he is aware that the historical requirements of the new Code, which are widely different from those now in force, will render obsolete nearly all the historical reading books now in use, and thereby inflict serious additional expenditure on the various School Boards and school managers; and whether he will reconsider these requirements?

MR. ACLAND

I may point out to the hon. Member that the new syllabus in history is not compulsory. Any School Board or body of school managers may submit an alternative course for approval, and if such course generally conforms to the syllabus in the previous Code, it will be accepted. This provision will, I hope, satisfactorily meet the cases in which there is a stock of history readers in hand which it is desired to retain in use.

MR. TALBOT

asked if the right hon. Gentleman was aware that the regulation caused consternation amongst the managers of schools, the idea being that the whole of the stock would be worthless?

MR. ACLAND

thought this was the result of an imperfect reading of the Code.

MR. J. H. JOHNSTONE

I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education if, under the Code of 1895, when object lessons and suitable occupations are taken as class subjects for Standards I., II., and III. in a public elementary school, children who pass out of those standards, and receive instruction in other class subjects, will be expected to come up to the standard of examination in those subjects, indicated in the second schedule to the Code as suitable to the standard in which they are when examined.

MR. ACLAND

Children, when they pass into the Fourth Standard and take up one or more of the class subjects mentioned in Schedule II., will be instructed in the stage applicable to that standard. I do not anticipate that any serious difficulty will result. In many cases the children will have been prepared for the new class subject by the course, of object lessons previously taken, and Her Majesty's Inspector will, in all cases, take into account the novelty of the new subject to the children, and make due allowances.