§ 3. Mrs. Renée Shortasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what steps he is taking to increase the facilities for training more educational psychologists.
§ The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Denis Howell)The report of the working party under the chairmanship of Professor Summer-field on the work, qualifications, training and supply of educational psychologists was published last September and contains proposals for expanding training facilities among its recommendations. I am currently considering the comments of local authority associations and other professional bodies concerned on these recommendations.
§ Mrs. ShortI am much obliged to my hon. Friend for his reply. Will he bear in mind that there is a great need for educational psychologists, not only in the education service, but in special hospitals and in many sections of the prison service, and will he implement these proposals at the earliest opportunity?
§ Mr. HowellI hope to make a further statement in the not-too-distant future. We have been operating hitherto on the target of the previous Underwood Committee, which recommended in 1955 that there should be one psychologist for just over every 20,000 schoolchildren. The Summerfield Report now recommends that this number should be doubled.