Lieut.-Colonel MALONEasked the President of the Board of Education whether the age limit for competing in the lady clerks' examination for the Civil Service is now 18 to 20; whether it is proposed to introduce shortly measures for altering this age to 16½ to 17½ and whether, in view of the fact that this will mean that girls now over 17½ will be unable to compete, he will see his way to give two years' notice before bringing this regulation into operation, or by other means protecting the interests of these individual cases?
§ Mr. BALDWINThe answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The limits of age, 16½ to 17½, are proposed for female candidates for the new "Clerical Class" in the Civil Service, to be recruited by open competitive examination under a syllabus framed with reference to the standard reached at the end of the intermediate stage of a secondary school course. It will be some time before a competition for the new class is held, as provision will be made in the meantime for appointment of a proportion of the temporary clerical staffs. It is not desirable to delay the proposed 2111W re-organisation by continuing to recruit the old class of woman clerks, and in the circumstances it is impracticable to adopt special measures in the interests of persons now over 17½.