§ Mr. Sydney Chapmanasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many schools are now receiving help under the educational priority area programme; and if she will publish a table in the OFFICIAL REPORT showing the number of these schools in each county borough, in each of the Outer London boroughs and in the Inner London education area.
§ Mrs. ThatcherEducational priority areas have never been designated as such. But extra assistance has been and is being given to local education authorites with areas of special social needs in a variety 251W of ways, notably under the urban aid programme and through the designation of schools of exceptional difficulty. There are some 530 such schools at which additional payments are made to the teachers. Such areas already benefit from the improvement and replacement programmes for school building and will benefit further from the nursery education programme announced in Cmnd. 5174. It would be impracticable to provide comprehensive lists.