HL Deb 07 July 1904 vol 137 cc930-42
LORD HERRIES

My Lords, I rise to ask the President of the Board of Education whether he will take into consideration the necessity of making special grants towards the travelling expenses of pupil teachers attending pupil teachers' centres in agricultural districts. My reason for putting this question is that I do not think the Board of Education quite realise the very great difference which will be entailed by the new regulations in the course of the education of pupil teachers—the very great difference there will be between the cost in towns and the cost in the country. The Board of Education have not, apparently taken into consideration the distance these pupil teachers will have to travel. I have asked the clerk to the education committee in the East Riding of Yorkshire to let me know what the travelling expenses of the pupil teachers are there, and he informs me that while the cost of education in three pupil teachers' centres only amounts to £450, the travelling expenses run to £400, very nearly as much as the cost of the education. In the towns that expense is saved, and it seems to me there should be some recognition of this fact and special grants made in agricultural districts in order to defray the extra cost.

It is bad enough as things are at present, but it will be worse when the new regulations come into force. Under the new regulations which will come into force next year, pupil teachers will not be allowed to serve more than half time in a public elementary school; they must receive half-time instruction at some pupil teachers' centre. That means that for two and a half days a week they will have to attend a pupil teachers' centre. Where we have now one pupil teacher in our schools we shall, therefore, have to have two, because they will have to attend half time at the centre; and if they are ten or twelve miles from the centre it will be necessary to pay their expenses backwards and forwards each day. The sum of £400, to which I have referred, is incurred with only one day a week; with two and a half days a week that expenditure will be enormously increased. In agricultural districts the cost of education is a very serious matter, and the unpopularity of the new Education Act is partly due to the fact that it will entail a very great expenditure upon the country.

For myself I must say I do sympathise with those agriculturists who have to pay in respect of education, I was going to say an income-tax, because it amounts to an income-tax in the case of many agriculturists. In some cases it amounts to 10, 15, and even 20 per cent, of their income. I know farmers paying £1,000 a year rent who are rated upon £1,000 a year, and having to pay 6d. in the £. I have no doubt that last year the education rate amounted to at least 10 per cent, of their income. Next year the expenditure upon pupil teachers will be very much greater. How they are going to get over the difficulty which faces them I do not know. It will be for the county councils to consider. There are several ways of getting over the difficulty, and I am afraid it will be found that in some counties, at any rate, a very unsatisfactory mode may be chosen. It will be possible, for instance, for a county council to come to the conclusion that the expenditure on training pupil teachers is so great that they will not train them, but will rely upon other towns and other cities to train them, feeling that by paying slightly higher salaries they will be able to procure a sufficient supply of teachers without having the expense of training them. That is one possible way of meeting the difficulty, but I think it is a very unsatisfactory one, and I should be very sorry to see that method carried into operation.

Another mode which may be selected by the county councils is that of starving the secondary schools. At present the grants received for the purposes of secondary education have been most beneficial. I have had the honour of being chairman of our education committee for twelve or fourteen years, and I can say this, that during the time these grants have been made the attendance at secondary schools has increased eight-fold. The advantage that has been conferred by these grants to secondary education has been enormous. I should be sorry to think that by the new scheme about to be introduced any injury should be done to the secondary education of the country, but I do fear that if we have to spend such an enormous sum of money upon the education of our pupil teachers that may possibly be the result. The third way of meeting the difficulty would be by having a rate, and I must say I deplore the necessity of imposing a rate for the purpose of giving instruction to pupil teachers in pupil teachers' centres. I hope, therefore, my noble friend the President of the Board of Education will take into consideration the very great difference between the cost of educating pupil teachers in the country and in towns. In towns, of course, the pupils can go from one school to the other by trams or 'buses and the cost is small, but in the country, if you have to take pupil teachers ten, twelve, or fifteen miles to the centre, the expense is very great. I think in this matter the country should be placed on equal terms with the towns.

THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (The Marquess of LONDONDERRY)

My Lords, I certainly have no fault to find with the very moderate manner in which my noble friend has put this Question to me. I know full well, although I do not myself reside near the East Riding, the great interest which the noble Lord has always taken in everything connected with that Riding of Yorkshire, and the prominent part he has played in regard to education there. I am not sorry that my noble friend has raised this question, for I cannot but think that at the present moment there exists, not only in the minds of your Lordships, but throughout the country, a misapprehension as to the requirements of the pupil-teacher system. I do not think any noble Lords who have studied the question of education will contradict me when I say that the education of the pupil teachers is of enormous importance. It is the bounden duty of the education committees to see that those who are to instruct the rising generation have, themselves had a proper training for that duty. We must recognise that the greater portion of the teaching staff in our elementary schools is recruited by means of our pupil-teacher system.

This system has existed now for considerably over fifty years, but up to two years ago it had not been in any way varied during that half century. Until the Act of 1902, I do not think there had been any alteration for the betterment of our system of pupil teaching. I do not wish to say anything on an occasion like this of a controversial character, but I doubt very much if noble Lords opposite have ever done anything in that direction. I do not think Mr. Acland, my predecessor at the Board of Education and a recognised educational expert, who did his utmost to discharge the duties attaching to the position, ever did anything himself to promote our pupil-teacher system, and, therefore, by the Act which became law in 1902, that system has for the first time received practical and useful aid from the Government of the day. I consider that enormous benefit will accrue to education in the future from that Act. I think our pupil-teacher system will receive enormous benefit from the provision in that Act which gives to the local authority in any area increased advantages in the promotion of the pupil-teacher system. If you go back to the foundation of this system, you will find that the only aid given was the grant paid to the elementary school where the pupil teacher was supposed to, and I presume did, teach; but until last year the sum paid to those teachers was, on an average, only about £2 per head per annum.

My noble friend laid great stress on the fact that extra expense would accrue from the new regulations of the Board of Education. I think my noble friend overlooked to a certain extent the fact that those regulations with regard to the pupil-teacher system are not compulsory but may be acted upon according to the requirements of the locality. There is no need in any area for any authority to rush headlong into any extra expense. They may take whatever course they like, and my own advice to my noble friend would be that he and his council should advance very slowly and cautiously, feeling their way in the line they propose to take. My noble friend evidently entertains the idea, and I am bound to say that I think it is an idea which is very generally held, that the regulations of the Board of Education have increased the expenditure of local authorities under the particular head to which reference is made. ["Hear, hear!"] With due deference to my noble friends who say "Hear, hear," I do not think they quite realise what the Board of Education has done in respect of these regulations, which, as I say, are not compulsory. I do not think they have realised the great importance which we naturally attach to the pupil-teacher system and the fact that we have been able to induce the Exchequer to give us largely increased grants in order to develop and improve the system.

The Board of Education issued last year some new regulations on this important matter in which, amongst other things, it was provided that a completely new grant became payable for the preliminary education in preparatory classes of boys and girls likely to become pupil teachers; and further, that the existing grant of £2 for the education of each pupil teacher was raised to £3 wherever such pupil teacher was receiving proper instruction in a well-equipped centre. Since then, in spite of the admittedly difficult financial situation this year, the Board of Education has been privileged to announce that both of these grants are this year to be doubled; that is to say, that whereas in previous years before 1903 practically no grants were payable for the preliminary education of boys and girls about to become pupil teachers, there will this year be payable for this purpose from the Exchequer as much as £4 per head. And in respect of each pupil teacher properly instructed in a well-equipped centre there will be payable a grant of £7 per head, including therein the grants hitherto payable in respect of pupil teachers instructed in science and art classes. I think your Lordships will thus admit that, so far from increasing the burden of local authorities, the present Government have taken very long steps indeed towards alleviating the burden of local authorities in this respect.

I do not for one moment contradict what my noble friend said as to the difference between urban and rural districts. Undoubtedly in towns there are facilities which do not exist in the rural districts. I should like to be able to tell my noble friend honestly what it is possible for us to do to meet the incontestable difficulty to which he has referred, but I am sure the noble Lord would not ask me to make any premature statement or hold out to him any hope of meeting his demands which it would be impossible for me to realise. Considering the short time that the Education Act has been in force, it is impossible for us at the Board of Education to make any accurate estimate as to what may be the number of pupil teachers in the coming education year, which begins on 1st August. I am obliged, therefore, to tell my noble friend that I cannot give him any definite answer at the present moment as to what we can or cannot do. I hope, however, that before the autumn we shall have obtained statistics from the various areas, with which we are in constant communication, as to the number of pupil teachers who require this assistance. Again, I say we shall lay special stress on the fact that those in rural districts require greater assistance than those in urban districts; but until we have received the returns and been able to carefully examine the statistics and formulate some plan by which we can meet the requirements of these districts, I do not think it would be wise on my part to make any promise.

I hope that when we have formulated our plan we shall be able to meet some of these requirements, and be placed in a position to ask for even further aid from the Exchequer. But at the same time it must be understood that although we may, and I believe we shall, receive further aid from the Exchequer, I cannot promise to earmark the manner in which that extra aid is to be expended. Circumstances vary in different areas, and what might be an advantage to my noble friend in the rural district in which he takes such a great interest might not be an advantage in other more thickly populated districts. I can assure my noble friend that I sympathise with all that he has stated. It may be said that it would be convenient to local authorities that we should state what amount of money we expect to get, and the manner in which we propose to distribute it, but it is impossible at the present moment for me to give any definite answer on that point. I can only assure my noble friend that when that money comes in we shall endeavour to administer it in such a way as shall be satisfactory to the local authorities, whether they be urban or rural.

LORD HENEAGE

My Lords, I am glad my noble friend behind me has elicited from the noble Marquess an acknowledgement that there is a great difference between agricultural and urban districts. The real question is not whether county councils in the great agricultural districts, which are thinly populated and very badly supported by railroads, are obliged to go to this expense, but whether you wish to keep up the pupil-teaching system or not. I imagine that at the present time a great number of school managers in the large counties, like Lancashire, where the pupil teachers have to go a considerable distance to the centres, and where the railway accommodation is as bad as it is possible to conceive, are considering whether they will in future send pupil teachers at all to those centres. I am sure the noble Marquess, after what he has said, will agree that it is highly essential that we should train as many pupil teachers as possible both in agricultural and urban districts; but the facts have to be looked in the face.

I have had considerable experience as one of the managers of elementary schools, and I am certain of this, that it is impossible to carry out this particular provision of the Act of 1902 at the present moment. If pupil teachers are to give up one half of their time each day to attending these centres, it practically means giving up the whole of the five days, or, if they are to go for two and a half days, it means that they will have to give up three days. Therefore, if you are to have education going on in the future it will be necessary to engage two pupil teachers where you now have one, or you will have to give up sending these pupil teachers to the centres at all. I think a great deal might be done by altering the rates which they are paid in the country and in the town districts. In the towns they can go to the centres after they have done all their work, or, at any rate, after they have done a good half-day's work and at no expense to the school managers; but in the agricultural districts it is quite impossible for them to do so. There is another point I should like to bring to my noble friend's attention, and I do it with the full knowledge that he will look thoroughly into all these questions. Before the Act of 1902 came into force, school managers were in the habit of paying schoolmistresses for giving, out of hours, extra education to the pupil teachers, but they cannot do that now. The county councils are not enabled to pay anything whatever. As they have no money of their own, they cannot pay schoolmistresses, with the result that pupil teachers have to absolutely rely for any instruction they get out of school hours upon the pupil teachers' centres, which it will be impossible in many agricultural districts for them to attend.

LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEY

My Lords, I did not think when I saw this notice on the Paper that it would have grown into a discussion on the pupil-teacher system. I feel, with the noble Lord who called attention to this matter, that the problem of securing teachers in the rural districts is one of the most difficult problems that those concerned in education have to face. I do not put it so much on the question of cost; it is a very difficult matter to get them at all, and, when you have got them, to give them anything like a proper training. I could not follow the noble Marquess in what he said as to the new regulations. There have, I know, been certain notifications as to the postponement of some of the provisions of the new Pupil-Teachers' Minute, both as to age and as to the time of coming into operation, but they have been merely temporary postponements.

The new regulations for pupil teachers contemplate that very soon nobody in towns will be able to become a pupil teacher until he or she has turned sixteen. The period of pupil teachership is cut down to two years, but in rural districts it is three years. Formerly the period was four years. Recollect that these pupil teachers are to be half-timers throughout. I think that is admirable and absolutely necessary. But let me say that this half-time need not be worked each week; so long as the pupil teachers do so many days a year they may take them at a time convenient to themselves. Therefore, the Board of Education, I admit, has aimed at making this comparatively easy. What I complain of in the new Minute is that the Board of Education have triad to jump to what may be called a comparatively ideal system of training pupil teachers at a moment when it was very important not to dislocate the system, and when the improvements ought to have been introduced carefully and step by step with ample notice, because, as I have no doubt the noble Marquess will agree, the great difficulty at the present moment is where to find teachers at all. There is a great demand for better teachers. The competition is much keener than it was, and at this moment there is not only nothing substantial done to increase the supply of teachers, but the new Minute will, I feel confident, very greatly diminish the sources of supply that now exist. I was a little surprised to hear the noble Marquess say that from the establishment of the pupil-teacher system down to 1902 the system had remained stereotyped, and that nothing had been done to improve it. My recollection of the history of education does not at all correspond with that of the noble Marquess. When Mr. Lowe in his Code aimed at economies, unfortunately those economies struck at the root of the best part of education. He cut down the liberal grants to pupil teachers, he cut down the hours during which they must be instructed by their head teacher, and he left them very much at the mercy of the managers. They were thereby turned into a cheap auxiliary staff instead of pupils being gradually trained to become teachers hereafter. I feel compelled, however, to remind the noble Marquess that there have been improvements, though they have been more pressed upon the Board of Education than granted voluntarily.

Until the Cockerton judgment a great deal was done to train pupil teachers, but now, unfortunately, there obtains in the Board of Education a desire largely to sever the recruiting of pupil teachers from elementary schools. I view with very great apprehension the difficulties we shall go through in the next few years. Let me remind the noble Marquess that if he will read the evidence and the Report of the Departmental Committee, over which Mr. Sharpe, so long chief inspector of the Board, presided, he will see that some time before 1902 a very careful review of the pupil-teacher system and very valuable recommendations for its improvement were presented, and that review and those recommendations did really embody what was the practice of the best school boards at that time. When the noble Marquess paraded the recent liberality of the Government in having increased the grants to pupil teachers, he might have remembered that that liberality took the form of giving back a pound or two of that which had been previously taken away. In old days pupil teachers might get £3 or £4 a year, and it was spread over a longer period. Now the grant will be £2 at the earlier stage, when they will be studying mainly in secondary schools as full-timers at a cost of £8 or £10 a year.

When the noble Lord who initiated this discussion spoke of the possible courses that might be taken to get over the difficulty he said that one course which presented itself was that of giving up the training of pupil teachers altogether and of relying on neighbouring districts for recruiting the staff. I think that would be a most disastrous course to take. If each district tries to poach on its neighbour there will soon be no supply in any district. It is difficult enough to get pupil teachers in the rural districts as it is, and, if the Board of Education enforce their own regulations, it will become more difficult, because the Board have in the Code a theoretical rule, that pupil teachers should only be allowed in schools where they could be well trained, and where the size of the staff and the school are such as to render it possible to train them. There are many rural schools, therefore, which cannot possibly have pupil teachers. I am quite sure that the only way in which you will get pupil teachers under any conditions similar to those that now prevail in the regulations will be through cheap secondary schools, by founding small scholarships and getting the promising children from the elementary schools to come in, as day scholars it may be, on the understanding that if they spend a couple of years in these schools they will pass on to become pupil teachers.

The problem in the rural districts is quite a different one from that in the towns. I do not want to go into controversial matters to-night, but merely to contribute a few practical suggestions. I agree with the noble Marquess that it would be a pity, when he gives more liberal grants, to earmark them for this or that. The habit of earmarking grants is a mischievous one; it makes local authorities think they are only to teach that for which they are paid. The trouble is that under the present law there is no duty imposed upon any local authority with reference to the training or preparation of pupil teachers. Previous to the Cockerton judgment the duty of instructing pupil teachers was one of the obligations of the Code, failure to perform which would have led the Board of Education to declare the school board authority in default; but it was declared in that judgment that it was illegal for them to perform the duty of giving this instruction. The Government might, if they had chosen, have corrected that peculiar decision by indicating that the training of pupil teachers should be a part of the duty of the authority charged with elementary education. It would then have come under the elementary rate, which is not limited in amount; but instead of that, they declared that it should be a branch of secondary education. Moreover, by turning children out of the elementary schools at fifteen and not taking them as pupil teachers till they are sixteen you run the risk of a gap in the school career which will make you lose many promising candidates. But the rights of local authorities under the secondary education part of the Act are permissive, and carry with them no duties. No school managers can call upon the local authority to do one atom for the teaching of pupil teachers, because that is a branch of secondary education which is discretionary and not compulsory. The difficulties, as I have said, are very great, and I think the Board of Education will do well to put forward some further Memorandum indicating how they suggest that local authorities should battle with this question, because it is a serious one and one on which some help from the Board of Education will be useful.

EARL SPENCER

My Lords, there was one remark made by the noble Marquess which I should like to correct. He rather twitted our side of the House by saying he did not think we were aware of the great importance of this pupil-teacher question. I protest against that. There are many Members on this side of the House who have taken a prominent part in education and who are fully cognisant of its great importance. For the new educational authorities the question is a serious one, and I think we ought to be very grateful to my noble friend for bringing the matter forward, for we have had a very useful and interesting discussion upon it. The speech of the noble Lord who spoke last was full of the information which he possesses almost more than anyone else on this subject, and we ought to thank him very much for his contribution to the discussion. I venture to say that in connection with this subject there is no question now so important as an increase of places where teachers and pupil teachers can be properly trained.

At this moment thee ducation of pupil teachers is relegated to secondary education. In many counties we have hardly been able to develop that at all, and the consequence is that there is an almost entire blank from the old system to the new with regard to the instruction of pupil teachers. One thing has been brought out most clearly to-night, and I think it is fully appreciated by the noble Marquess, and that is, that in considering this great subject—and it will have to be considered in great detail—it must be remembered that there is a great difference between rural and urban requirements. I am afraid from what I have seen, and from the little experience I have had in this matter lately, that some of the regulations put forward—I am not sure that they have not been some- what modified since—did impose severe terms with regard to pupil teachers' centres which would very greatly add to the difficulties surrounding this subject, particularly in rural districts. The noble Lord who spoke last made what was no doubt a very wise suggestion with regard to that. I think the debate has been a useful one, and will impress upon the noble Marquess the great difficulties there are connected with this important subject, and I trust that the Board of Education will take all these matters that have been referred to into consideration, and will give such assistance to the local authorities as will enable them to supply what is so much needed, a greater number of teachers and also of pupil teachers.