Schools : eighth report from the Select Committee on Estimates together with the Minutes of Evidence taken before Sub-Committee E and Appendices, Session 1952-1953.

  • Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Select Committee on Estimates
Date:
1953
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Schools : eighth report from the Select Committee on Estimates together with the Minutes of Evidence taken before Sub-Committee E and Appendices, Session 1952-1953. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Education the other day, and I am sure you cannot expect us to do what the Minis- try with all its facilities cannot do. 588. I do not know. I think if you want to prove something to the Ministry it is useful to get the facts yourself and con- found them?—We do get reports irom people in the schools, and this document is compiled from reports. 589. That is 1936?—Yes. 590. I was wondering whether you have an up to date one?—There has not been much done since 1936 as far as these old buildings are concerned. Brigadier Peto. 591. | was wanting to follow up what Mr. Jones said. He quoted a school where there are plenty of rooms and few students. My point is this. Are there not cases where village schools, that type of school, could be or should be condemned because they have physically too many pupils. You said in your remark just now you did not think the number of pupils was taken into account when condemning schools?—I am certain it was not. 592. I should have thought that was the first thing to be considered?—I should say the main things are structure, ventilation, lighting, and things like that. There are plenty of new schools, if that was the criterion, that you could condemn _ because they are overcrowded before they are open, almost. (Mr. Hickman.) The grammar school I worked in had 650 pupils in a school built for 300 within five years. (Mr. Griffith.) 1 have had a complaint even now from one of our New Towns in a very good L.E.A. area, Hertfordshire, Hemel Hempstead, where the schools and the houses are being planned to meet at a certain point, but before they reach that point where the accommodation will be suitable for the children there will be a time when there will be 600 children with- out school accommodation. _Chairman.] J think that is another ques- tion. On the question of overcrowding and unsatisfactory schools, are there any other questions? Mr. James Johnson.] 1 would like to move on to special schools. Chairman.] Very well, we will take it now. Mr. James Johnson. 593. Yes, because it is very important indeed. In big cities particularly we are spending thousands on subnormal, abnor- mal and physically handicapped children we cannot obviously contain inside our so- called normal or average schools. I would like the views of the delegation on that, about buildings and accommodation and facilities for teaching?—We would say there is not sufficient money being spent in get- ting accommodation for children in special schools, because we find that there are at least 20,00 children who ought to be in special schools who have been found to be in need of it, and that has an important repercussion, because as there is no accom- modation for them the local authority and the doctors and everybody seems to say: “What is the good of ascertaining these people; there is no accommodation for them; you only raise people’s hopes”. There has been quite a substantial number of new special schools built. (Mr. Britton.) Not built—opened—old mansions and things of that kind, but it does not meet the demand at all. Brigadier Peto. 594. You cannot give us anything more definite than that on the numbers?—20,000 is the figure. If you look in the Ministry’s last Report, I think you will find over 20,000 who ought to be there and who cannot find places. Mr. James Johnson. 595. Is it correct to say that the number would be swollen enormously to perhaps 30,000 or 40,000 if we had the accommo- dation in special school buildings?—Yes. (Mr. Hickman.) It is a reasonable deduc- tion. Chairman. 596. Is that figure of 20,000 a figure which would be agreed by the Ministry of Education?—(Mr. Griffith.) This figure is 20,128 in December, 1950. It is in the Ministry’s Report. We can check that up for you. 597. Where are those children now—in ordinary schools? —(Mr. Britton.) Mainly in ordinary schools. 598. Do you think it would be beneficial to provide special classes in schools for those children? —(Mr. Griffith.) There are experiments going on now in some areas. Mr. James Johnson. 599. Your feeling is, Mr. Griffith, that we could build some of these schools or have a place for them inside the school building programme at the moment, and that would be a definite help to school teaching and the actual life of education inside our big cities particularly, Man- chester, Liverpool, Birmingham and so on? —Yes. Everybody is going out for that, but it had been neglected in certain paris, in Wales particularly. Chairman. 600. I think we have to bear in mind whether it is likely to be more costly to us in the end by keeping 20,0U0 children