§ MR. MACPHERSON (Preston)To ask the President of the Board of Education whether he is aware that Willesden Education Committee have introduced an area scheme against the wishes of the parents, and also a scheme which imposes hardships upon the scholars, as, under the said scheme, children are being removed from the schools in which they have received all their education, and are being sent to other schools, in some instances further from their homes; and will steps be taken to see that the scheme is vetoed and the wishes of the parents recognised.
(Answered by Mr. Runciman.) It is understood that the Willesden Local Education Authority desire to assign a particular area to each of their council schools and to confine or give a preference in admission to each school to the children resident in that area. The arguments advanced by the local education authority in support of this arrangement are by no means trivial, and the Board agree with them in thinking that it offers substantial advantages from the point of view of organisation and would, on the whole and in the long run, be quite as convenient to the parents as to the local education authority. On general grounds, therefore, the Board are reluctant to interfere with the discretion of the local education authority. On the other hand, the introduction of such an arrangement may give rise to personal grievances in some cases, and although the local education authority are willing to make large exceptions to their rules and to allow the elder children (and the younger of the same family as elder children) to continue in attendance at the schools which they now attend, it is possible that still further provision should be made to meet the views of parents who object to their children's removal to a new school. The whole question is receiving careful consideration.