§ Mr. Pitmanasked the Minister of Education whether he will now make a statement on his plans for improving the distribution of teachers.
§ Sir D. EcclesWith the general support of the associations of local authorities and teachers, I have just sent a circular to local education authorities, setting out the scheme they are asked to operate as an exceptional and temporary measure to improve the distribution of teachers. All authorities are expected to do two things which depend on one another for their effectiveness—to make the maximum use of home-based teachers (that is, married women teachers, part-time teachers and older teachers) and to be guided closely by staffing standards which I have defined numerically for each162W authority. Thus, the scheme has two objects: to safeguard the total supply of teachers and to produce a better distribution of teachers as between the easy and the difficult areas.