§ 27. Dr. David Kerrasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what investigations he proposes to undertake into the reasons causing trained teachers to leave full-time employment in the education service.
§ Mr. CroslandSubstantial information about wastage was assembled in a report by Professor Kelsall on Women and Teaching published by H.M.S.O. in 1963. We are keeping the need for further investigations under review.
§ Dr. KerrWould my right hon. Friend note that there is accumulating evidence to show that ony about 40 per cent. of women teachers lost to the education service are lost through marriage and family reasons and that there are other reasons causing the grave loss of teachers, among which, I suspect, is the low scale of salaries. Will my right hon. Friend keep that in mind?
§ Mr. CroslandI have this very much in mind. I do not think that the evidence available to us at the moment will support the statement my hon. Friend made about women leaving the profession. Wastage is a very serious problem. We hope to have far more detailed findings by June or July of this year on the nature of the wastage, and we shall then consider whether we need some investigation.
§ Sir G. NabarroWould not the Minister make representations to his right hon. Friend the Chancellor and cause him to take note of the fact that women graduate teachers leave the profession largely because their incomes are aggregated to those of their husbands, resulting in penal, punitive and excessive taxation?
§ Mr. CroslandThere is no evidence of any kind to support that rather wild statement. If the hon. Gentleman, whose entry into the education field I very much welcome, will read the Report of the Kelsall Committee, which his right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Sir E. Boyle) commissioned, he will find no evidence for his statement.
§ Sir G. NabarroI thoroughly disagree with that.