HC Deb 16 October 1918 vol 110 cc218-28

(1) No resolution of an education authority for the dismissal of a certificated teacher from their service shall be valid unless—

  1. (a) written notice of the motion for his dismissal shall, not less than three weeks before the meeting at which the resolution is adopted, have been sent to the teacher and to each member of the education authority; and
  2. (b) the resolution is agreed to by a majority of the full number of members of the education authority.

Mr. MUNRO

I beg to move, in Subsection (1, b), to leave out the words by a majority of the lull number of members of the education authority, and to insert instead thereof the words two-thirds of the members of the education authority present and voting. My hon. Friend the Member for Lanark moved, upstairs, that the Clause should read "two-thirds of the members present and voting," and I promised to consider the matter before the Report stage. I was disposed at the time to accept the proposal of my hon. Friend, but there was difficulty, in regard to the larger and more sparsely populated areas, as to securing the full attendance at meetings of the education authorities concerned. So far as the regular meetings of the authorities are concerned, that is quite a different point, I admit. Perhaps we might meet that by an Amendment lower down on the Paper. At the present moment my view is that if there is any question of the dismissal of a teacher upon the agenda paper of the education authority, it would be certain to have a large attendance of members on that occasion. Certainly the friends of the teacher would be there, and very properly so. Accordingly my first observation would be that if this matter were given notice of beforehand, it would ensure a very large attendance of the education authority. Will the House please observe how that matter stands? Under the Section at present there must be three weeks' notice of any proposal to dismiss a teacher; that notice must be given to every member of the education authority, and also to the teacher himself, so that every one of these persons concerned would have the fullest notice of the proposal to dismiss a teacher. I do not think there is any risk which a teacher would run as the result of the House accepting the Amendment. Even if all these safeguards to which I have referred were not sufficient, I beg the House to remember that I accepted an Amendment upstairs which involved, even under the new and larger authorities, that there shall still be a right of appeal to the Education Department. It was thought in the Committee that that right of appeal under Section 21 of the Act of 1908 is really unnecessary now in view of the larger education authorities which are to be set up, and there is a great deal to be said for that view; but yielding, as I thought, to the view of the great majority of the Members who were present, I have restored that Section, which was repealed in the Fifth Schedule to this Bill, and, in terms in the Clause which is under consideration, it is now clearly enacted that the right of appeal shall remain, even though the authorities are larger and probably more responsible than the smaller school boards. Therefore, inasmuch as there is full notice—three weeks—to the teacher and to each member, inasmuch as the proposal to dismiss a teacher will always ensure a full attendance of the education authority, and inasmuch therefore as a snap Division is really not to be anticipated, and, finally, inasmuch as if it did occur, there is a right of appeal to the Education Department, which would have to decide whether the dismissal was reasonably justifiable or not, I submit that the rights of teachers are amply safeguarded by this Amendment.

Mr. GULLAND

I am rather disappointed that the Secretary for Scotland has put down this Amendment, because my recollection was that the Committee was quite satisfied generally with the way it was left upstairs. I have always understood that one of the reasons for this Bill was to ensure security of tenure to teachers, and I am not convinced by the arguments that the Secretary for Scotland has used. Perhaps I have some right to speak on the matter because he has several times used the words "snap Division." I claim to be a victim of snap Divisions, and am therefore rather interested in trying to prevent them, and I am not at all convinced of the dangers of snap Divisions being non-existent. You never know when a snap Division is coming. That is the nature of it. And even with three weeks' notice of a meeting and of the business of the meeting you might have a bad day and you might have all sorts of conditions arising which would prevent a full attendance of the authority. Let us see what this Amendment actually means. A quorum of the education authority is one-fourth, and a teacher may be dismissed by two-thirds of the members of the education authority present and voting. Two-thirds of a fourth, if my arithmetic is right, is one-sixth, and it may be even less than a sixth, because it is those present and voting, and there may be quite well some members of the authority who are present and do not wish to declare themselves on one side or the other. That means that you may have a teacher dismissed by a sixth, or less than a sixth, of the members of an education authority.

Mr. MUNRO

There is still the right of appeal.

Mr. GULLAND

No one wants to have these appeals. It is far better that the education authority should be responsible because the right of appeal is always there, but I do not see why the right hon. Gentleman has shifted his ground in this matter. I do not think he is very convincing in his arguments. I merely wish to put the case that the teacher is entitled to justice, and we understood he got it, in the terms of the Bill, by a Resolution agreed to by a majority of the full number of members of the education authority. That is a clear and definite number that he knows and everyone knows, but when you come to two-thirds of those present and voting you get into a sea of uncertainty and danger, and as one object of the Bill is to obtain security of tenure to the hardworking and capable and good teacher, I really do not think the Secretary for Scotland should depart from his original idea.

Sir J. YOXALL

I very much hope I may be allowed to say a few words although intervening in an affair with which I have no direct concern. I deprecated to some extent the repeated interference of certain Scottish Members in the English Education Bill, and therefore I am all the more chary of saying anything on this Bill. But upon this point the teachers of Scotland are entirely opposed to the proposal made by the Secretary for Scotland. The last speaker has very ably exposed the immediate and detailed objections to the proposal. If you have a good teacher, it is to the interest of the school and the locality that you should back him up and make him secure in the discharge of his functions. The plan proposed by the Amendment might be very well in an urban area, but in county areas, particularly in the smaller parts of the county areas, in; small villages and hamlets, you have the teacher trying to do his duty, in the midst of backbiting jealousies and difficulties engendered by his very efforts to do his duty, and the proposal made would be to place the teacher at the mercy of local jealousies and difficulties arising from the discharge of his duties. It is better to have no teacher at all than to produce in the teacher the fear that if he does his duty he may suffer because of the opposition and cabals of the parents of the children whom he found it his duty to chastise, to chasten, or to discipline in the proper way. To say that a teacher, having acted to the best of his opportunity and capacity, may be dispossessed from his position by a vote of a sixth of the local education authority is surely a proposal which cannot be sustained in this House. In England there must be a majority, and the fact that there must be a majority is found to be sufficiently operative to secure justice. It is true the English local authorities will be larger than the Scottish authorities in rural areas, and that in itself secures a fair amount of justice, but under this proposal I think, and I am sure the teachers of Scotland think, their proper safeguards will not be obtained. I would ask the Secretary for Scotland if he does not think it very important to fall in with the wishes general consensus of the communityega of the House, and of the teachers, and the general consensus of the community that a teacher doing his duty should be backed up in doing it. A disaffected parent who is perhaps opposed to education altogether, who disapproves of compulsory attendance at school, and who is not desirous that his child should be properly disciplined at school, should not be able by any amount of intrigue or cabal to bring about the dismissal of a teacher. When the Secretary for Scotland points out that three-weeks' notice having been given there would be a large attendance of the Committee, I think he is proposing to the House a fallacy. There are always in every locality a certain proportion of persons who prefer to abstain from a Division, who cannot make up their mind upon the Debate as it proceeds, and who are constitutionally unable to make up their minds, or if that be not the case they are cautious persons who look to the next election, and think of the weight of opinion on one side or the other, and decide that on the whole they had better abstain from voting. Therefore, you cannot depend upon having a full meeting of the education authority upon three weeks' notice, and it may be that the dismissal of a teacher will be decided by not more than one-sixth of the total number. Is it necessary to make this change? Why vary the procedure which has been in existence up to now? Why make this change because a snap Division upstairs adopted a proposal of this kind? [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no!"] I was not there, and if I am wrong I beg to withdraw the statement. But, for some reason which the Secretary for Scotland did not propound, this change is to be made. It was not in the original Bill, and I do not think it is his wish that a change should be made. However, we have this Amendment proposed which nobody wants, so far as I can understand. The teachers do not want it. Is there any proof that the local authorities want it? Is there any proof that anybody wants it other than the Member who proposed it to the Committee upstairs? Then why make the change? There is no real reason for making the change. In the past things have worked very well. The teachers have asked me to speak in their name, and I think I may claim to do that even upon a Scottish Bill. I urge and I beg the Committee to maintain for the teachers in the future as in the past that safeguard for independence in the discharge of their duty which security of tenure for the teacher means.

10.0 P.M.

Colonel COLLINS

The Secretary for Scotland, in moving the Amendment, has been carried away by the eloquence of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for North-West Lanark in the Grand Committee Room upstairs. It must be particularly gratifying to my hon. and learned Friend to find that he has been able to persuade the Government as to the force of his argument. I gathered from the arguments which he advanced in moving this Amendment that the Secretary for Scotland was satisfied that there would not be any opportunity of a snap vote. In other words, if he thought there would not be a snap Division or a small attendance of Members voting, he would not have been disposed to move this Amendment. My hon. Friend who followed him pointed out, and pointed out accurately, that the attendance on a particular day might be very small and that the majority of members voting for the dismissal of a teacher might be a very small percentage of the total members of that committee. Is the Secretary for Scotland willing to increase the quorum which is necessary for voting to be held on that day? At the present moment the quorum is one-fourth of the total number. Is he willing to increase the quorum so as to remove the chance of a snap Division, which might very readily occur, and which, I understand, he is anxious to meet if at all possible?

Mr. FALCONER

I hope the Secretary for Scotland will adhere to the Amendment. The discussion which has taken place seems to me to proceed upon the assumption that the whole purpose of this Bill is to give absolute security of tenure to the teacher, on the assumption that every teacher is an excellent teacher, doing his duty, and that he may be persecuted by some people in the local place where he is working. So far as persecution and local jealousies and rivalries are concerned, that consideration is entirely removed by the fact that the dismissal could only take place at the instance of the education authority over a very wide area. In no county of Scotland would you get jealousy in regard to the conduct of a teacher in a particular school influencing members of the education authority selected from a wide area throughout the county. If the argument we have listened to is to be given effect to, what is to become of the school where the teacher is inefficient? It will become absolutely impossible to get rid of inefficient teachers. The reason why I support this Amendment is the overriding consideration of the interests of the children who are being educated. We must make provision for the removal of those teachers who are not efficient. I do not believe that any teacher who is doing his duty runs any risk of being dismissed by an education authority over a wide area unless there is good cause shown. Under the school board there have been differences through personal jealousies arising among teachers and parents, but that could only apply to the parents of scholars attending a particular school, and could not apply to the new education authorities. In some counties the members of the education authority have to come from very wide distances, involving probably a day's journey, and there will be many occasions, especially during the winter, when the chances are that you will not be able for months to get together a majority of the education authority, so that one or two members might be sufficient to retain in his position for a long time a teacher who is not fit for his position.

Sir J. YOXALL

Or to dismiss him!

Mr. FALCONER

I think the danger is all the other way. I can imagine a circumstance where two or three members might be able to retain a teacher in his position when one-half, or nearly one-half, of the educational authority were satisfied that he ought to be dismissed. It is on that ground, and in the interests of the education of the children, and because I believe the teachers have better security of tenure than almost anybody I know if they are doing their duty, and if there is an education authority drawn from a very wide area, that I hope the Secretary for Scotland will adhere to his Amendment.

Mr. J. HENDERSON

I agree with the hon. and learned Member that he ought to make good teachers' tenure as secure as possible. They are entitled to be free from any nagging, worrying, or undercurrent, which may be intended to remove them, from some personal feeling or other wise. I have come across in Scotland only two cases of what you might call unreasonable dismissal. I have come across several cases where you could not get rid of a bad master—a man whose habits were bad. It was difficult to get anybody in a small community to come forward and give evidence. The result was that they had an inefficient teacher. If you have a council of forty and you have made the quorum one-fourth—that is ten before the whole quorum is there, and you want twenty-one votes to dismiss a man, all voting for his removal, is that common sense? It is very difficult even to get two-thirds of those present. The whole question was discussed upstairs. You hardly ever get a very full attendance, except upon very special occasions, and there will always be a few men who will come there as personal friends of the master, however bad he is, who perhaps associate with him in some of his little amusements, and you cannot get twenty-one men there to get rid of the individual teacher. That is not what good teachers want. It is against their interests that there should be bad teachers alongside them. I cannot imagine that any teacher would complain if it was put to him that you have got to have two-thirds of those present, and it is not the old parish authority, but some-thing wider. One of the greatest protect- tions of the teacher was that he was to be taken away from the local parish and to go to a larger authority. Is it conceivable that you would get two-thirds of the men from a distance, men not mixed up with any local quarrels, who would deliberately dismiss a man if he was a reasonably good man? Further than that there is an appeal to the Department. No good teacher wants anything more. They are not unreasonable. On the contrary, this Bill gives a great protection by insisting that two-thirds of those present who take an interest in the subject and take the responsibility of it should be required to vote and that there should then be an appeal to the Department. I cannot imagine a more reasonable security, always remembering that you should never put too great difficulty in the way of removing a bad teacher, because you must admit that there are such men, and, after all, as my hon. Friend has said, it is the interests of the children which have got to be considered.

Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT

This is really a narrow point, but it is a very clear point, and there is not very much in it. I hope that my right hon. Friend will be persuaded to adhere to his first thoughts in this matter. We are in a fortunate position in opposing the Amendment of my right hon. Friend. We are not opposing the Government or opposing my right hon. Friend. The choice is not between my right hon. Friend and one of his critics or one of the opponents of the Bill. It is between my right hon. Friend in his first thoughts and my right hon. Friend in his second thoughts. In my right hon. Friend's Bill the proposal was that the teacher should be dismissed by a bare majority of the council. His second proposal is that he should be dismissed not by a bare majority of the council, but by a majority of two-thirds of those present at that particular meeting. My hon. Friend the Member for Forfarshire made a strong point of not giving teachers absolute security of tenure. I agree that it would be very dangerous to give teachers, or any other officials, absolute security of tenure, but the Bill, in the form in which it is before us, does not give absolute security of tenure. Very far from that. It renders the teacher liable to be dismissed by a bare majority of the council, and it is not difficult, in the case of an avowedly bad teacher, to get a bare majority.

My right hon. Friend has argued against that, and has said that there is sure to be a large attendance. If there is a large attendance, then it would be necessary to get two-thirds of that large attendance, which is more than the bare majority, but the teacher is willing to accept the bare Majority. My hon. Friend the Member for Forfarshire says that there will not be a large attendance, that there will be great difficulty in travelling, especially in winter time, which is quite contrary to the case which has been put by my right hon. Friend, who said that in this case there is certain to be a large attendance. Where there is a large attendance the teacher recognises that this would give him the advantage, but he is quite willing to abide by the bare majority of the council, but he is afraid of the limited number of instances that will arise where there is a small attendance, as my hon. Friend opposite says will happen fairly frequently, and of the risk of the vote given where there is that small attendance. If that is possible, how do we stand? My right hon. Friend has said that there will be an appeal to the Education Department. He made that a very strong point, and the hon. Member for Aberdeen reiterated it. But the appeal is not an appeal for reinstatement, as my right hon. Friend rather conveyed, not intentionally. The appeal, even if it is successful, does not lead to reinstatement. It only leads to a small monetary compensation. Even if the Department thinks that this teacher has been wrongfully dismissed, the Department cannot reinstate him. It can only give him a small monetary compensation. Now, the teacher here is perfectly willing to sacrifice the safeguard of the two-thirds majority on a large attendance. In many cases there would be a large attendance and that would be a safeguard to him. But he is perfectly willing to sacrifice that in order to safe guard the large number of teachers who may be dismissed on a small attendance. He is perfectly willing to abide by a Majority of the council. In that case there is no appeal in the Bill which would compensate him, even if the Department thought he was wrongfully dismissed. Now, as we were appealing, not against the Government, not on behalf of some critic or opponent of the Government, but merely on behalf of the first thoughts of the Government as against the second thoughts, and as there is very little in it—there are only a few cases that might arise—I hope that my right hon. Friend will agree to adhere to his first thoughts on this matter.

Amendment agreed to.