§ Miss Quennellasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science (1) what is the most recently available average primary school pupil/teacher ratio for England;
(2) if she will list those education authorities in England whose primary school pupil/teacher ratio exceeds the national average.
§ Mr. van StraubenzeeThe ratio was 27.0 in January, 1971. Local education84W authorities whose primary school pupil/teacher ratio exceeds this are as follows:
English Counties (16) Cheshire Nottinghamshire Cornwall Oxfordshire Essex Somerset Kent Staffordshire Lancashire Sussex—West Leicestershire Warwickshire Northamptonshire Worcestershire Northumberland Yorkshire—N. Riding
English County Boroughs (62) Barnsley Leicester Barrow in Furness Lincoln Bath Manchester Birkenhead Northampton Birmingham Norwich Blackpool Nottingham Bolton Oldham Bootle Plymouth Bournemouth Portsmouth Bradford Preston Brighton Rochdale Burnley Rotherham Bury St. Helens Canterbury Salford Carlisle Southampton Chester Southend-on-Sea Coventry Southport Darlington South Shields Derby Stockport Dewsbury Sunderland Doncaster Teesside Dudley Torbay Eastbourne Wakefield Exeter Wallasey Gateshead Walsall Gloucester Warley Great Yarmouth Warrington Grimsby West Bromwich Ipswich Wigan Kingston-upon-Hull Wolverhampton Leeds Worcester
Outer London Boroughs (8) Barking Harrow Bexley Havering Brent Sutton Bromley Waltham Forest The average ratio covers the generally worse PTR of the county boroughs and the better one of the counties. Of the 62 county boroughs listed, 46 have a ratio worse than the county borough average of 27.8.