§ MR. ERNEST GRAY (West Ham, N.)I beg to ask the hon. Member for the Thirsk Division of Yorkshire, as a Charity Commissioner, whether he is aware that in the Scheme of the Charity Commissioners for the management of Kirkham Grammar School, it is provided that the Governors may only dismiss the head master after six calendar months' written notice given to him in pursuance of a resolution passed at two special meetings held at an interval of not less than 14 days, such resolution being affirmed at each meeting by not less than two-thirds of the governors present and voting on the question; whether, in a scheme by the same Commissioners 1215 for the management of an endowed elementary school in the same county, it is provided that the governors may at their pleasure dismiss all teachers without any of the conditions mentioned in relation to the Grammar School; can he state the reason for such difference of treatment; and will he represent to the Commissioners the desirability of providing in all schemes for endowed elementary schools that the teachers employed in such schools shall enjoy the same security against capricious dismissal as is possessed by teachers in grammar schools?
MR. GRANT LAWSON (York, N.R., Thirsk)Provisions for dismissal at pleasure of every teacher and officer are, under Section 22 of the Endowed Schools Act, 1869, inserted in schemes for all Endowed Schools, whether grammar or elementary. The regulation of Endowed Secondary Schools is exclusively within the province of the Charity Commissioners, and they deem it desirable to insert in schemes for those schools additional provisions for regulating the exercise, in the case of Head Masters, of the statutory powers of dismissal. Endowed Elementary Schools, on the other hand, form only part of a general system of primary education, controlled as a whole by the Education Department; and it is with a view to avoid possible interference with the jurisdiction of that Department that the Charity Commissioners refrain from adding in schemes for those schools to the statutory conditions of tenure. In these circumstances the Commissioners do not propose to modify their present practice in this respect.
§ MR. GRAYasked whether the hon. Member was aware that the Vice President of the Council had repeatedly stated to the House that he had no control over the dismissal of teachers in primary schools.
MR. GRANT LAWSONreplied that the Charity Commissioners felt that in this matter of Endowed Elementary Schools, with regard to which they had only a very limited jurisdiction, they ought not to take action, but ought to wait for the Education Department to move in the matter if it was thought necessary to do so.