§ MR. F. E. SMITH (Liverpool, Walton)I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education whether the Code contains any conditions as to the rate of salaries payable by a local authority to teachers in public elementary schools; whether he proposes to insert any such conditions in the Code; whether, in the absence of any such conditions in the Code, the requirement of the Education Bill, that voluntary schools which contract out of the national system shall satisfy the conditions of grant imposed upon public elementary schools, will have any application to the payment of equal or sufficient rates of salary to teachers in voluntary schools.
§ MR. MCKENNAThe Code does not prescribe any conditions as to the rates of salary payable to teachers, except 56 that the salary provided for by the teacher's agreement must not be subject to variation according to the amount of grant payable in respect of the school. I do not propose to insert any new conditions on this point, and having regard to the wide divergence in the scale of salary for teachers, even of the same grade, in different parts of the country, it would be impossible for the Board to prescribe equality or to determine as to the efficiency of salaries. The Board's duty is to see that a proper standard of efficiency is reached, as a condition of the payment of Exchequer grants.