Rural Areas (Hansard, 12 December 1946)

§ 4. Mr. Dodds-Parker
asked the Minister of Education how she proposes to accommodate larger classes in rural areas in April, 1947, when the school leaving age is raised.

§ Miss Wilkinson
The arrangements for providing additional accommodation for the raising of the age of compulsory school attendance are outlined in the Ministry's Circular 64 of which I am sending the hon. Member a copy.

§ Mr. Dodds-Parker
Will the right hon. Lady consider keeping one class back in the primary schools, to assist the main burden on the secondary schools?

§ Miss Wilkinson
I can assure the hon. Gentleman that these matters have been taken very fully into consideration, and the scheme is really far too far advanced for changes now.

§ 18. Mrs. Leah Manning
asked the Minister of Education what provision for secondary education and for the raising of the school-leaving age to 15 she is making in the all-standard schools in the rural areas of this country.

§ Miss Wilkinson
The benefits of secondary education cannot be fully effective so long as senior pupils have to be educated in the same classes or schools as junior pupils, and that is why I intend to press on with the reorganisation of schools as rapidly as the country's building resources permit. In the meantime, I am confident that teachers and local education authorities, with whom my Department keeps in close contact, are fully alive to the necessity for making the best possible provision for the older children in unreorganised schools.

§ Mrs. Manning
In view of the fact that most of these schools are in rural areas— there are nearly 6,000 of them out of a total of 10,000 for the country as a whole —cannot the right hon. Lady appeal to the Minister of Works to ask for a further consignment of huts, which he tells me he is willing to make, so that she can build schools in central areas for senior children, because they are really not getting any advantage at all out of the Act?

§ Miss Wilkinson
Surely the hon. Lady does not wish to imply that the Minister of Works has huts which he has not revealed to me but has revealed to her? 1309 Believe me, we are working in the closest contact with the Ministry of Works, and this matter has been put in the hands of the Parliamentary Secretary. I am convinced that we have a great deal to be thankful for to the Minister of Works, but he cannot do miracles, as materials are very short at the present time.

§ Mr. Pickthorn
In view of what the Minister said about the difficulty of new buildings, can we be given an assurance that no existing educational buildings shall be taken for any non-educational purposes?

§ Miss Wilkinson
It is not possible to make a reply to a wide generalisation like that. [HON MEMBERS: "Why not?"] Because I do not know. So far as possible, we are not only using all the available educational buildings, but getting other buildings as well.

§ Mrs. Manning
May I ask the right hon. Lady whether she proposes to answer the last part of my Question, and whether she has or has not, through her inspectors in the areas, given a lead and direction to these standard schools?

§ Miss Wilkinson
My hon. Friend really ought to understand that owing to the appalling mismanagement of education by previous Governments in those years before the war, when both labour and materials were available, we are now left with a tremendous lot of bad buildings which we really cannot deal with at once.

§ Mrs. Manning
Owing to the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment.

§ Mr. Scollan
On a point of Order. Would it be possible for you, Mr. Speaker, to arrange for this House to meet on Sundays to get through all these points?

§ 31. Mr. Osborne
asked the Minister of Education if she is aware that dissatisfaction is felt by parents over the manner in which local education authorities are exercising their functions with regard to the entrance of children from rural areas into local grammar schools, especially where a grammar-school education is a pre-requisite to entrance to an agricultural college; and what steps she is taking in the light of a Louth case, details of which have been sent to her.

§ Miss Wilkinson
I am not aware of any general dissatisfaction in this matter. I have investigated the facts of the case which the hon. Member has brought to my attention and am satisfied that the pupil concerned was given every chance to show that the grammar school course would suit her ability and aptitude, but that on the results of the tests and on the basis of her school record the authority rightly considered that this course was not best suited to her requirements.

§ Mr. Osborne
Will the right hon. Lady give local authorities more flexibility in administering the conditions she lays down, so that exceptional cases can be taken into consideration more than they have been in the past?

§ Miss Wilkinson
Local authorities have all the flexibility they can possibly want in these matters. We are not concerned with laying down hard and fast rules. The whole of this matter was dealt with by the local authority.