§ Captain R. TERRELLasked the President of the Board of Education how many purely agricultural districts have not yet adopted the Burnham scale for teachers; and whether, in advocating or recommending such rates of payment, any distinction is drawn between the cost of living in the towns and in the country?
§ Mr. FISHERThere are 15 county areas which are mainly agricultural in character and in which the local education authority have not yet adopted a standard scale, namely:
England: Berkshire, Cambridgeshire, Cornwall, Devonshire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Hertfordshire, Huntingdonshire, Isle of Wight, Lincolnshire (Lindsey), Oxfordshire, Suffolk (West), Westmorland, Worcestershire.
Wales: Cardiganshire.
But these authorities are all paying upon the provisional minimum scale of the Burnham Committee. The Report of the Burnham Committee, in which the allocation of standard scales among the local education authorities was recommended, does not give the reasons which influenced the Committee in assigning a particular scale to each area; but the list taken as a whole shows that the lower scales have been assigned to the more purely agricultural districts.