§ SIR G. KEKEWICHI beg to ask the President of the Board of Education whether any secondary schools containing infant or junior departments receive grants from the Board of Education; whether such grants are applied wholly or in part to payment of the cost of those departments; and whether those departments are maintained with a view to class distinctions.
§ THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Mr. LOUGH, Islington, W.)I believe that in certain secondary schools, especially those provided and maintained by local authorities which were formerly known as higher grade schools, there are preparatory departments for boys and girls under twelve years of age. All grants paid in respect of secondary schools go into the school fund of such schools, and are not, as indeed they could not be, 1297 earmarked to be spent solely on any one particular portion of the school expenses. The Answer to the third paragraph is in the negative. The purpose of these preparatory departments is to enable children coming from a public elementary school to profit more fully by the secondary school course than they could otherwise do, in fact, to compensate them for the better preparatory education which other children attending the secondary school may have received owing to the greater private means of their parents.