Sir J. D. REESasked the President of the Board of Education whether under the scheme of educational assistance for ex-service officers and men training and maintenance allowances have been given to individuals whose previous opportunities would never have admitted them into the profession for which they are being trained; and is it a fact that school-masters under this scheme have been trained at the taxpayers' expense for other professions?
§ Mr. FISHERI have no doubt that some of the ex-service students who are being aided under the scheme for the higher education of ex-officers and men would not have been able, before the War, to secure full-time courses of higher education for the professions for which they are now preparing. I see no reason to regret this circumstance. Some students who were teachers before the War have been aided with a view to their adopting another profession. But it has been the Board's rule to discountenance such change of profession unless there was clear evidence that disability caused by War service rendered a return to the teaching profession undesirable in the interests of the individual and of the educational service.