§ 102. Mr. Swinglerasked the Minister of Education if she will make a general statement on how the stimate of 1,150,000 new school places required by the end of 1953 was arrived at, including, in particular, the difference between this estimate and that made by her predecessor in 1946 and the amount of allowance made in her estimate for the difficulty of planning a correct geographical distribution of new school building.
§ Miss HorsbrughYes. Between January, 1946, and December, 1953, the total school roll will increase by about 1,353,000.
During the same period, my predecessor estimated that about 700,000 new school places would be needed for children moving to newly developed areas. As, however, some of these children are included in the figure of 1,353,000, and as others will free existing places in the areas from which they move, the net effect of re-distribution of population was estimated to be an additional 240,000 places, making 1,593,000 in all.
This figure is, however, reduced to 1,150,000 when account is taken of an estimated reserve of 330,000 places available in 1946, mainly as a result of a reduction of about 500,000 in the school roll since 1939, and of my predecessor's decision to write off a deficiency of 110,000 places which had accumulated by the end of 1949. This decision, which took into account the prospective supply of teachers, meant recasting the school building programme on the basis of maintaining class sizes at the level existing at the end of 1949.