84. Lieut.-Colonel J. WARDasked the President of the Board of Education whether he is aware that the operation of Circular 1,245 of the Board of Education, which limits their expenditure on the blind and deaf in 1922–23 to those of the current year, will prevent the attendance of some such children at suitable schools; that the Manchester Education Committee has already decided, in the cases of blind or deaf children waiting for admission to suitable schools, that such children can only be sent as those at present in schools leave at the age of 16; and whether, because of the danger of individual blind or deaf children suffering the loss of their educational training, which is their only hope in life, he will withdraw the circular referred to?
§ Mr. FISHERCircular 1,245, which was issued in January, 1922, conveyed a warning, not a decision, as to possible restrictions in 1922–23 on expenditure on special schools, not for the blind and deaf only, whose education necessarily demands an exceptional measure of individual attention, but for all types of defective children. I am fully alive to the needs of blind and deaf children, and hope that by the exercise of greater economy over the whole field sufficient provision for their education may still be made.