HC Deb 22 July 1907 vol 178 cc1178-9
MR. CARLILE (Hertfordshire, St. Albans)

On behalf of the hon. Member for London University, I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education whether schools which were on the grant list for the year 1906–7, but which during the school year 1907–8 failed to fulfil one or more of the conditions set out in the Regulations which would entitle them to receive the increased grants under Articles 39 to 41 of the Regulations, will continue to receive grants as heretofore, not only for the school year 1907–8, as stated in Article 42, but subsequently, provided they satisfy the Regulations in other respects, or whether it is his intention after the year 1908 to strike off such schools from the grant list altogether.

MR. MCKENNA

The schools referred to will receive, in respect of the school year 1907–8, not the grants "as hereto fore," but the grants specified in Article 42 of the new Regulations, provided that they satisfy the Regulations in all requisite respects. The Answer to the concluding paragraph is in the negative, but I cannot, of course, in any way bind my own action or the action of the Board of Education in future years.

MR. CARLILE

On behalf of the hon. Member for London University, I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education whether he can state in how many schools which are recognised as secondary schools, and receive grants as such, the Board has permitted, in accordance with Article 8 of the Regulations, no languages other than English to be taught; and whether he can give the names of those schools.

MR. MCKENNA

Sanction has been given in two cases only. The first is the Central Foundation Girls' School, Stepney, which is attended mainly by girls of foreign origin, for whom instruction in English is more than usually necessary, and who have not the ordinary difficulty in mastering the initial stages of a foreign language. French, however, continues to be taught in this school for a number of hours less than the ordinary minimum required by the Board. The second case is the Duchess of Northumberland's Girls' School, Alnwick, where the curriculum is of a technical charater involving the allocation of a large amount of time to domestic subjects.