§ Mr. Lubbockasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will instruct his representative on the Schools Council to recommend that schools cease requiring pupils to do sums involving farthings and that the teaching of decimal currency be introduced in the academic year 1968–69.
§ Miss BaconThis is a matter for the local education authorities and the schools, but I am informed that only a small and diminishing number of schools still require pupils to undertake computation involving farthings.
At our request, the Schools Council has already prepared a pamphlet, which is to be published shortly, about curricular implications for the schools of the change to a decimal currency. Last month the Department distributed widely throughout the education service an Administrative Memorandum which gave details of the timing of the change, and of the arrangements which have been made for the Decimal Currency Board to keep the service informed about developments.
I am confident that the schools appreciate the need to introduce decimal currency into their syllabuses at an early date.