Mr. David Adamsasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education whether he will state the total number of local education authorities which are understaffed according to the Board's regulations; the total number of such authorities which are overstaffed; the Board's required establishment for England and Wales; the actual establishment at present in England and Wales; the school population in the same; and the total number of unemployed trained teachers, with details of the length of unemployment of these?
Mr. LindsayThe Board's regulations do not prescribe any particular scale or scales of staffing and their method of dealing with the teaching establishment of local education authorities under Article 11 of the Code does not lend itself to classification of authorities as under or over-staffed. I may, however, say that the present establishments of many local education authorities contain a number of redundant teachers owing to the impossibility of immediate and continuous adjustment of the staff in relation to the fall in the number of children in the 2363W schools, without the dismissal of teachers—which the Board and the local education authorities do not consider proper. The total of the establishments approved by the Board for the year ended 31st March, 1938, was 170,131 and the number of full-time teachers employed on 31st March, 1938, was 169,034.
The number of children on the books of public elementary schools maintained by local education authorities on the same date was 5,035,276.
As regards unemployed teachers, I would refer the hon. Member to the answer given to the hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) on 9th February, 1939.