§ DR. MACNAMARA (Camberwell, N.)I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education if he can state the practice of the Board in the matter of the number of square feet of floor space to be allocated to each child in the planning of new schools, council and non-provided; whether it is the practice to permit existing council and non-provided schools to accommodate children on any other scale; if so, whether he will state that scale, and the extent to which it is now in operation; and if he will consider the desirableness, in the interests of the health and comfort of the children and of educational efficiency, to insist upon at least a ten square feet scale all round.
§ MR. BIRRELLThe aim of the Board of Education is to secure for each child in a public elementary school ten square feet of floor space. In the case of new schools or enlargements their practice now is always to insist on this; and as regards existing schools they endeavour to bring about the same state of things. But in exercising pressure to this end some regard has to be paid to the heavy burden that would be placed upon the rates by any sudden demand for so large an increase of school provision as would be entailed by a universal application of a ten feet scale, that burden being already in many places very severe. The scale 551 recognised in former days, for Board schools and voluntary schools alike, was eight square feet for each child; and this no doubt obtains, so far as nominal accommodation is concerned, in a large number of schools, both council and voluntary. But, on the other hand, it must be remembered that very many schools, though calculated on the eight square feet basis, do in fact afford much more than eight square feet for each child, owing to the number of children attending them being much less than the nominal accommodation.
§ MR. LUPTON (Lincolnshire, Sleaford)What is the effect of these overcrowded schools on the eyes and other organs of the children?
§ MR. BIRRELLI cannot say.
§ MR. J. WARDI beg to ask the President of the Board of Education whether, seeing that the regulations of the Board prescribe 16 square feet of floor space for secondary schools, he will order that the schools of the working classes shall be treated on similar hygienic lines.
§ MR. BIRRELLIn addition to what I have said in reply to the Question by the hon. Member for Camberwell, N., on the same subject, I should like to say, in regard to the wording of the Question of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, that I must not be considered as holding, as would seem to be implied in the Question, that the secondary schools are not schools for the working classes; every possible step is being taken, while making these schools efficient, to bring them as much as possible within the reach of the working classes by scholarship systems, reduction of fees, and in other ways. The fact that a larger amount of floor space is required under the Board's Regulations for secondary schools than can be insisted on in respect of Public Elementary Schools is in part due to the fact that the provision of secondary schools is not a statutory obligation upon every authority in the same direct sense as in the case in regard to Public Elementary Schools. As regards the latter, any such requirement as 16 square feet per child would be impossible, however desirable in itself, seeing that it is a question of 552 absolute obligation to provide accommodation for some 5,000,000 children.