§ LORD GARNSWORTHYMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
§ [The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are satisfied that colleges of education are preparing students for the change-over to metrication.]
1513§ THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE (LORD BELSTEAD)My Lords, I am confident that the colleges of education are alive to the importance of metrication and of the need to prepare their students for it.
§ LORD GARNSWORTHYMy Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. May I ask him whether he is satisfied that the Metrication Board take the same view that he has just expressed? May I also ask whether his Department have been in contact with the Metrication Board on this issue? If they have not, will they get in touch with the Board, and give them an opportunity of making known to the Department their feelings regarding this important matter?
§ LORD BELSTEADMy Lords, a survey of the colleges' activities in this field is currently being planned by the Metrication Board, and the noble Lord may be interested to know that the Secretary of the Association of Teachers in colleges and departments of education is in fact a member of the Education and Training Steering Committee of the Board.
§ LORD SHACKLETONMy Lords, may I ask the noble Lord what is the basis of his confidence is that colleges of education are preparing properly for the introduction of metrication? Have the Department themselves taken any initiative in the matter?
§ LORD BELSTEADMy Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for asking that question, because it gives me the chance to explain the slightly difficult position of my Department in certain matters, and the way in which we try to resolve our difficulties. As the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, will know, the Department of Education do not have responsibility for the curricula in colleges of education, which rests with the colleges themselves and the area training organisations of which they are members. What the Department have done is to try to give guidance in the introduction of school pupils to the metric unit. Guidance is given by the Department's and school council's various publications; and of course Her Majesty's Inspectors advise 1514 the colleges on such matters and have stressed the importance of metrication. Perhaps I might add that H.M.I. courses for serving teachers have also included appropriate treatment of the subject.
§ LORD BLYTONMy Lords, does not the noble Lord consider that this metrication system, conditioning us to go into the Common Market, may be wasted money? We are now getting such support as anti-Common marketeers that we are satisfied that it will be a colossal waste of money.
§ LORD BELSTEADMy Lords, I am delighted to inform the noble Lord that that question falls well outside the remit of the original Question.
§ LORD WYNNE-JONESMy Lords, is the noble Lord aware that in the colleges of education throughout this country only about 10 per cent. of the students get exposed at all to any science? Is it therefore likely that they are being given adequate instruction in metrication? Is this not a case for the Government to take clear action in the matter?
§ LORD BELSTEADMy Lords, I hoped that I had told the House that the Department of Education had tried to take clear action by dissemination of information, which is where our responsibility lies. As regards the reception of information coming back we shall have to await the findings of the survey of the Metrication Board.
§ LORD GARNSWORTHYMy Lords, is the Minister satisfied that the advice being tendered by Her Majesty's Inspectors is being taken by the colleges? I am aware of the reply he has given to my noble friend Lord Wynne-Jones, but in view of the fact that this is a reasonably urgent matter, may I ask that the Department take serious steps to satisfy themselves on this point? Is the Minister aware that some inspectors in the employment of local authorities are not by any means satisfied that adequate steps are being taken to prepare students for this developing situation?
§ LORD BELSTEADMy Lords, I can only say once again that local authority inspectors are autonomous. May I repeat the fact that we have tried to disseminate information to those local education authorities in whose employ are 1515 those inspectors to whom the noble Lord is referring.
§ LORD GARNSWORTHYMy Lords, would the Minister take notice of the fact that I have in my hand an article by an L.E.A. inspector in which he states opinions which quite clearly indicate that he thinks that a great deal more needs doing?
§ LORD BELSTEADMy Lords, I thank the noble Lord for the information that he has given me. I would ask the noble Lord whether he would care to look, for instance, at such publications as Metrication in Schools, to the Administrative Memorandum 15/69, which was sent out from the Department of Education and Science, not to mention various other publications, which really show that the Department is acting as fully as it possibly can within its legislative remit which it holds under the 1944 Act. This was the basis of the noble Lord's original Question.