HC Deb 19 October 1972 vol 843 cc432-3
10. Mr. Redmond

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if she will seek to ascertain how many vacancies for full-time training for the specialist qualification in the education of the deaf there are at the Department of Audiology and Education of the Deaf at Manchester University, the University of London Institute of Education and the University of Oxford Institute of Education: and how many applicants there have been in the last three years.

Mr. van Straubenzee

There is at present only one vacancy left for such training and that is at the University of London Institute of Education. Applications for the courses at London, Manchester and Oxford together numbered 250 in 1970, 230 in 1971 and 276 in 1972. Some candidates applied to more than one of the institutions.

Mr. Redmond

Those figures are interesting, but does my hon. Friend agree that there have been instances when, in spite of the shortage of these valuable people in the schools for the deaf, there have been vacancies at the courses which have not been filled even though there have been suitably qualified candidates for them? Is not that a serious situation?

Mr. van Straubenzee

I would be helped if my hon. Friend would give me details, because the provision of teachers in this specialist field is one about which we are deeply concerned. I have, by the figures my hon. Friend asked me to give, shown that there is one vacancy. That does not entirely seem to show, at any rate in the current year, that qualified people have been turned away.

Mr. Moyle

Would not this be an opportunity for the Under-Secretary to announce on behalf of his right hon. Friend that she was setting up a central advisory council for handicapped children under the 1944 Act so that the council could conduct an inquiry into special education and teacher training therefor, as was promised by the Prime Minister before the last election? That is one of the Prime Minister's pre-election promises that we would not like to see reversed.

Mr. van Straubenzee

It would not be a suitable opportunity because it would overtake the fulfilment of that pledge in the way in which I think the hon. Gentleman knows, a way which covers a wide range of handicaps with which we are all concerned.