§ Mr. GRAYasked the President of the Board of Education whether he can give statistics showing the percentage of children receiving a secondary education in Great Britain and in the principal European countries?
§ Mr. TREVELYANThe number of pupils in secondary schools of which the Board have official cognizance, namely, (a) grant-earning secondary schools, and (b) secondary schools recognised by the Board as efficient, in England and Wales, on the 1st October, 1923, represents a proportion of 10.8 per thousand of the population. There are, however, a considerable number of important secondary schools which do not belong to either 2364W of these classes. As regards foreign countries, the organisation and nomenclature of higher education varies so greatly as between each other and as between them and England, that any inferences drawn from comparative statistics as to the relative extent of their systems of secondary education must be very precarious. Such statistics as are available indicate that the number of secondary school pupils per 1,000 of the population in France in 1922 was about four. The corresponding figure for Belgium, on the 31st December, 1921, was, approximately, 7.5; in Germany at the beginning of 1922, about 12.6; and in Holland, in 1921, about 4.6. But I must repeat that these figures can only be used with great reserve.