§ 66. Major CARVERasked the President of the Board of Education whether in view of recent developments in providing children with facilities for obtaining the necessary technical knowledge for entering certain industrial trades, he will consider taking the necessary steps to give more children a knowledge of agriculture in order to provide the encouragement necessary to persuade them to adopt agricultural careers?
§ The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Ramsbotham)The provision of technical agricultural education, analogous to technical education for industry of the type to which the hon. Member presumably refers, is within the purview of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture. But the Board of Education are fully alive to the importance of securing that courses of instruction in elementary and secondary schools in rural districts are specially suited to agricultural conditions, and they have for some time been encouraging the efforts made by county education authorities and governing bodies in this direction.
§ Mr. ANNESLEY SOMERVILLEIs not the best means of keeping boys on the land for the Government to continue their efforts to make agriculture more prosperous, and so enable the farmer to pay the agricultural worker a better wage?
§ Mr. RAMSBOTHAMThat is just what the Government are doing.