be made; and the object of sub-section (1) is to remove doubt upon the Board's powers in this regard, and to define the circumstances in which they may be exercised. Sub-section (2) of the Section is based upon Recommendation 67 of the Report of the Departmental Committee on the Training of Teachers for Public Elementary Schools. Its effect is to enable the Board to recover from local authorities for higher education not providing training colleges, the amount of additional grant paid to authorities which do provide training colleges, over and above half of their recognised expenditure on those training colleges. The amount of this additional grant was limited to £70,000.

It

Reference may here be made to the introduction in the House of Lords during the summer of the University of London Bill. The Bill generally embodied the recommendations of the Departmental Committee appointed in 1924, which reported in March 1926. received a Third Reading in the Upper House and was sent to the Commons before the recess. The final stages were completed before the end of the session, and the Bill received Your Majesty's Assent on 15th December, 1926.

6. During the course of the year a general revision of the Board's main grant regulations was undertaken. The principles observed in the revision were, firstly, to confine the regulations to a statement of the actual conditions upon compliance with which the payment of grant depends; secondly, to avoid repetition of conditions already expressly stated in the Education Acts; and, thirdly, to state, so far as possible, corresponding conditions for the several types of school or institution in the same way. The observance of these principles involved a considerable change both in the language and volume of the regulations. The effect of confining them to a bare statement of actual conditions of grant is, at first sight, to stiffen their language and to give them an appearance of greater rigidity; a closer examination, however, will show that the regulations, as revised, give local authorities a wider field for the exercise of their discretion. Nor, of course, is the change in the character of the language in which the regulations are expressed any indication that the Board intend to adopt a different spirit in applying them. The explanatory matter, included in the previous regulations and indicating the Board's views on matters of educational policy and administration, will be issued, so far as necessary, in the form of circulars and memoranda to local authorities and others concerned.

7. The revision necessitated some renumbering of the regulations. It covered the Code (now Grant Regulations No. 8), the Secondary School Regulations (now Grant Regulations No. 10), the Regulations for Further Education (Technical Schools, etc.) (now Grant Regulations No. 6), and for the Training of Teachers (now Grant Regulations No. 7). The regulations for other services have been, or will be, similarly treated as occasion arises. As

regards the Medical Services (Grant Regulations No. 19) and Adult Education (Grant Regulations No. 33), the current regulations have been operative so short a time that any further revision would have been premature and inconvenient. The main changes which have been introduced into the revised regulations are dealt with in the following Chapters. We need here only mention that in view of the character now assumed by the regulations it has been found convenient to apply both to England and Wales (including Monmouthshire) single bodies of regulations for elementary and secondary schools respectively, and that the new Regulations for Further Education differ both in form and substance from the old Regulations for Technical Schools, etc., which they replace, largely owing to the attempt which they embody to simplify the various types and categories of provision to be recognised and the educational and other requirements attaching thereto.

The only other changes in the regulations to which reference need be made relate to the Regulations for Substantive Grant. In September 1926 amending regulations to the Regulations for Substantive Grant for both Elementary Education (Grant Regulations No. 1) and Higher Education (Grant Regulations No. 4) were sealed, relating to the application of Lord Burnham's Award on the salaries of teachers, and a further amendment of the Higher Education (Substantive Grant) Regulations was necessitated by the provisions of Section 12 (2) of the Economy (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1926, as regards the training college "levy."

8. Two changes of procedure were decided upon which, it is confidently hoped, will do much to simplify the administration of teachers' salaries and to reduce the volume of work which it involves both centrally and locally. In the first place, authorities will no longer be required to supply individual particulars of teachers' salaries and service during the year, but only a list of those cases in which a departure is made from the Award and its approved interpretations. If a check is considered necessary, it is made at the offices of the local authority, an arrangement which enables much detailed correspondence to be avoided. The other change is the introduction of the Teachers' Service Book. The need has long been felt of an authoritative record of a teacher's service which would serve for the purposes of both salary and superannuation, and would render it unnecessary for local authorities, on appointing a teacher, to obtain certified records of his service from his previous employers. This need will, it is hoped, be met by the Teachers' Service Book, and, although its inauguration has thrown a certain amount of additional work both upon the Board's and the local authorities' staffs, a substantial saving of clerical work should result when the new system is fully operative. We should like to take this opportunity of thanking all those who placed their valuable help and advice at the service of the Board in working out the scheme.

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9. The work of the Burnham Committees during the year has been mainly concerned with clarifying the relationship of the Award to the earlier Reports of 1920 and 1921. In particular, we may mention the issue of a list of interpretations and decisions relating to the Award, and of a codification of the Board's decisions on the original Reports, modified so as to conform with the Award. The Committees have since undertaken the preparation of a new Report to include the Award and so much of the original Reports as are still applicable, together with full notes and indices.

10. Among matters of departmental interest passed under review in the following pages special reference may be made to the continued improvement in the length of school life and the development of the work of the upper forms of secondary schools; the arrangements for the final abolition of duplication of grant to schools and institutions of higher education; the decision to discontinue the Preliminary Examination for the Certificate after 1928, in accordance with the views of the Departmental Committee on the Training of Teachers, and to institute alternative methods of examination for persons preparing to be teachers, in place of the Board's Final Examination for the Certificate, a matter which has formed the subject of discussion between representatives of the universities, university colleges, local education authorities, training colleges and other bodies interested; the institution of a probationary year for new entrants to the teaching profession; the arrangement with the Central Welsh Board and the University of Wales whereby candidates for State Scholarships in Wales will be able to compete, as do candidates in England, at an approved Second Examination and will no longer have to sit for a special examination conducted by the University of Wales; the evidence of the continued success and popularity of the Board's Short Courses for Teachers, and the institution of superannuation schemes under Section 21 (1) of the Teachers (Superannuation) Act, 1925, covering service in nongrant-aided schools and in Juvenile Unemployment Centres and Home Training Centres aided by the Ministry of Labour.

11. The only committee which completed its labours during the year was the London University Committee, to whose report and the consequent legislation we have already referred. After the close of the period now under review, however, the committee on Education and Industry, presided over by Mr. D. O. Malcolm, presented an important interim report relating to the second part of its terms of reference, viz. :" the arrangements for enabling young persons to enter into and retain suitable employment"; and the Board's Consultative Committee completed its consideration of the reference before it and its report on the Education of the Adolescent was published just before the New Year. These two important documents will fall to be dealt with in our next Report.

12. The record of the year would not be complete without a reference to the reorganisation of Your Majesty's Inspectorate, which was undertaken in order to bring its organisation into closer harmony with the principles underlying the Education Act, 1921. The main feature is the application of the principle of unification of function to the upper ranges of the several branches, which thus become amalgamated into a single unified inspectorate. The new organisation is necessarily being brought into operation gradually, but we have every reason to think that it is welcomed by local authorities and teachers alike, and will substantially enhance the influence and effectiveness of Your Majesty's Inspectorate.

13. This year we deal in Chapter I with the scheme for the interchange of teachers between this country and the Dominions overseas, a subject to which the forthcoming meeting of the Imperial Education Conference lends a special interest. The scheme is not administered by the Board and, at present, the number of teachers participating in it is not large. We feel, however, that its value is much greater than the mere numbers represent, and that it would be well for education in this country, and for the best interests of the Empire as a whole, if the movement could grow and spread into new fields. The League of the Empire has been untiring in organising and developing the work of interchange, and we desire to acknowledge our indebtedness to its Honorary Secretary for having placed at our disposal valuable information for the purpose of this section of our Report.

We have on this occasion made certain alterations in the character and arrangement of the Report. The recent issue of a volume of Statistics of Public Education, covering the years 1924 and 1925, enables us to eliminate statistical matter, except so far as it is required to illustrate the argument of the text, or to relegate it to the Appendices. The sections dealing with Choice of Employment and the work of the Juvenile Organisations Committee have been taken out of Chapters IV and VI respectively and grouped together in a separate Chapter, and the information relating specially to Wales (including Monmouthshire) has been assembled into a single Chapter dealing with Welsh Education. In Chapter II we devote a special section to the courses organised for teachers in rural schools; the scope and organisation of the Royal College of Art are dealt with rather more fully than previously in Chapter V; and Chapter XII contains a brief historical account of the origin and growth of the Board's Reference Library.

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CHAPTER I.

THE INTERCHANGE OF TEACHERS.

Page

8

I. INTRODUCTORY..

II. ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE INTERCHANGE SCHEME

1. The League of the Empire

I. INTRODUCTORY.

14. That the value of a teacher, in his professional capacity, can be materially increased by foreign travel is a statement that needs no argument, and it is, perhaps, one of the healthiest symptoms of the present time that increasing numbers of teachers use their holidays to widen their field of experience and enlarge their knowledge of life by visiting other countries. No doubt the great improvement in teachers' salaries which followed the War, no less than the enhanced security for the future afforded them by the passage of the Superannuation Acts of 1918 and subsequent years, are mainly responsible for this, and although no comprehensive statistics can be given, it is significant that one important agency patronised largely by teachers reports that the number of teachers booking holidays on the continent of Europe in 1926 shows an increase of 250 per cent. over the corresponding number in 1912. The benefit which the experience so gained affords to both the teachers and their pupils, so far as the study of languages, geography and history are concerned, is obvious; in other subjects while less obvious it is equally real. It enables the teacher to bring into the classroom a freshness, an atmosphere of reality, an interest in life and a fund of general information which cannot fail to enliven the whole of his teaching.