§ 24. Mr. Dalyellasked the Secretary of State for Scotland on what date Mr. Alexander Love, of Shaw Avenue, Armadale, in the West Lothian constituency, was told orally by staff at Coatbridge Technical College to submit application forms for his 1963 examinations in electrical and mechanical engineering.
§ Mr. NobleInvestigation by Lanarkshire Education Committee has not established whether such information was given orally. In view, however, of the other means used to notify examination entry dates to students, the Committee decided that the college staff were not responsible for the failure of Mr. Love and two other students to apply in time.
§ Mr. DalyellSince there has been so much confusion and correspondence over 206 this case, would it not be chivalrous to give the young man in question the benefit of the doubt?
§ Mr. NobleIt would not be right for me to interfere with the arrangements which the education authority and the joint committee have made.They have allowed these two people not to have the rest of their programme held up but to sit the examination at the next opportunity, and I think that this is the right compromise.
§ Mr. DalyellDoes the right hon. Gentleman realise that it is asking a lot of a young man who has many other examinations to take to go on doing past examinations in which he has in any way been successful?
§ Mr. NobleI agree that it is perhaps bad luck for these young men, but they are not all that inexperienced. They had ample opportunity for studying the proper method of application for these examinations, and I think that we must give students of this age the credit for being able to take some responsibility for looking after their own affairs.