THE REPORT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION TO THE KING'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY IN COUNCIL FOR THE YEAR 1922-23.

MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MAJESTY.

We, the Board of Education, humbly submit to Your Majesty our Report for the year 1922-23.

1. The year with which this Report is concerned was: in many respects like its predecessor, a year of difficulty and restricted expenditure and, in consequence, the record contained in the following pages does not differ greatly from that of earlier years since the period of extreme financial pressure began. In recent months since the end of the year under review it has been found possible to remove many of the limitations to which reference is made in later chapters of this Report. We shall not till next year be able to deal in full with the action taken in this respect; but in the meantime we have indicated by footnotes or other addenda to the relevant paragraphs the more important of the alterations that have been introduced since the period with which this Report deals came to an end.

2. Progress during 1922-23 was restricted, but the record is not altogether a barren one. Some expansion was found possible in the provision of Secondary Schools and schools for defective children, and in the grants available for adult education; and several Local Education Authorities were able to take advantage of the schemes set on foot by Your Majesty's late Government for providing work for the unemployed, in order to carry out improvements, and occasionally replacements, of defective school premises. We deeply regret the postponement of the large programmes of development contemplated in earlier years; we hope to witness a resumption of steady progress in the future, and as already indicated, certain important steps have, since the end of the year, been taken in this direction. Of these, perhaps the most significant is the withdrawal of Circular 1190. That Circular was issued in January, 1921, and the general effect of it was to postpone expenditure on the development of educational facilities and the provision of sites and buildings unless exceptional circumstances rendered postponement impracticable. The Board are now prepared to revert to their old practice of considering on their merits all proposals in respect of Elementary, Secondary, Technical and Nursery Schools and for the development of the School Medical Service. Further,

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specific limits are no longer to be imposed upon the expenditure of Local Education Authorities to be recognised for grant.

3. From an administrative point of view one of the most unfortunate consequences of the recent restrictions has been the necessity imposed upon the Board of exercising a very detailed control over the expenditure of Local Education Authorities even in cases where the projects to be undertaken were of a comparatively trifling character. This duty the Board found all the more irksome, inasmuch as one of the main objects they set before themselves some years ago in the introduction of the expenditure grant was that administration might be relieved of that minute scrutiny, which is inseparable from a financial system based on a number of grants ad hoc, and that Local Education Authorities might he endowed with a wider measure of independence and freedom from central control. Unfortunately, however, the completion of the change in the grant-system coincided in point of time with a period of grave financial stress, following upon a remarkable expansion in public expenditure upon education; and, in consequence, the Board were for a time compelled to undertake a stricter scrutiny of the expenditure of the Local Education Authorities than they had ever contemplated or desired. It was, however, found possible towards the end of the year under review to abandon some part of this detailed examination of estimates; and in May, 1923, the Board stated in Circular 1310 that in future they would leave it to the discretion of the Local Education Authorities whether they should submit estimates relating to works of minor importance (as defined in a later paragraph of the Circular) the expenditure on which was to be met out of revenue.

4. The Estimates of the Board for the year 1923-24 amounted to £41,934,047, as compared with £45,275,000 for 1922-23. This figure was based upon an assumed expenditure of £58,902,000 by Local Education Authorities on Elementary Education, and £12,160,000 on Higher Education. An important factor in this reduction (besides the general policy of economy adopted early in 1921) was the voluntary offer by the teachers of an abatement of 5 per cent. in their salaries, to which reference will be made in a later paragraph. Moreover, the contributions from the teachers towards the cost of superannuation provided for by the School Teachers (Superannuation) Act, 1922, were estimated to produce a sum of £2,300,000 odd as an appropriation-in-aid of the Board's Vote. Another factor of which note should be taken is a fall in the number of teachers, and also in the number of children in attendance at school. The estimated cost of administration, inspection, etc., for 1923-24 was £905,689, showing a decrease of £63,000 odd on the previous year. Fuller particulars with reference to the Board's estimates for 1923-24 will be found in a "Memorandum upon those Estimates published as a Command Paper (Cmd. 1841) at the end of the year under review.

5. The legislative record of the year is a slight one. The Economy (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, 1922, which contained certain clauses affecting the administration of public education, and to which reference was made in the Board's Report for last year, was not proceeded with in its original form, and the only measure introduced and carried during the Session of 1923 for which the Board were responsible was the Education (Institution. Children) Act. The object of the Act was to adjust as between different Local Education Authorities the incidence of the cost of the education of children who, in the words used by the President of the Board during the debate on the Second Reading, are in an area, but not of it," that is, children for whose maintenance Boards of Guardians are responsible, and children who are maintained by Charitable Institutions. There has been for many years a natural and proper tendency on the part of Boards of Guardians and Charitable Institutions to send children into the country to be maintained and educated; these children are sent as a rule to the Public Elementary Schools of the neighbourhood, and the cost of their education has accordingly fallen on the area to which they are sent, and not on the area from which they come. These arrangements entailed a largely increased burden on certain districts, and the difficulties of the situation had lately been accentuated by two factors; first, a decision of the Court of Appeal (the "Gateshead Judgment ") to the effect that the Guardians of the Poor had a statutory right to have children. for whom they are responsible educated in Public Elementary Schools without payment of fees, and secondly, the growing financial difficulties of Charitable Institutions which make it difficult or impossible for them to provide, as they often did in the past, for the education of their own children on their own premises. The Gateshead Judgment put an end almost entirely to the practice that had prevailed up to that time among Boards of Guardians of making payments to Local Education Authorities in respect of the children for whom they were responsible.

The Act was framed with the intention of securing a more equitable adjustment of these charges. It establishes the principle that the Authority to pay for the education of the children in question is the Authority of the area to which the children belong; and means are provided for ascertaining which areas those are. Under Section 1 (1) the Local Education Authority of the area to which the children belong shall, if required to do so by the Authority of the area in which the children are educated, pay to that Authority the cost in the latter area of educating the children; the sum is calculated by reference to the average net cost per child in the Public Elementary Schools of the area. falling to be met from the rates in the last preceding financial year. Various consequential provisions follow relating to children in Special Schools. The Act came into operation on 1st April, 1923.

Reference has been made in previous Reports to the difficulties which have arisen in the administration of the Education (Choice of Employment) Act, 1910, and the proposals made by Lord Chelmsford in his report, dated 23rd July, 1921, for the removal of those difficulties. Statutory sanction was given to Lord Chelmford's principal recommendations by Section 6 of the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1923. The matter is dealt with at greater length in a later chapter of this Report.

Mention should also be made in any survey of the educational legislation of the year of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Act, 1923, which, though lying outside the scope of the Board's ordinary activities, was carried through the House of Commons by the President of the Board. The Act sets up a statutory Commission for each University to make statutes and regulations for the Universities, their colleges and halls in general accordance with the recommendations of the Royal Commission on those Universities.

6. Of the important changes introduced into the Regulations of the Board in 1922, those affecting Secondary Schools were dealt with in Chapter III of last year's Report, and this year we devote a considerable space in Chapter II to an explanation of the changes in the Code, some of which have in their turn been somewhat modified in recent months. The amendments introduced into other sets of Regulations were not of the same order of importance. Article 6 (ii) of Grant Regulations No. 1 (Substantive Grant for Elementary Education) for 1923-24 was altered so as to bring a larger number of areas within the category of "necessitous areas" for the purpose of the additional grant. Provision was made in Article 2** of Grant Regulations No. 4 (Substantive Grant for Higher Education) for the special additional grant for 1923-24 to Local Education Authorities maintaining Training Colleges, to which reference is made in Chapter VII of this Report. Grant Regulations No. 18 (Regulations for the Training of Teachers) were re-issued in January, 1923, embodying various separate Amending Regulations, among them the substitution of the Declaration for the old form of undertaking hitherto required of Training College students. A new set of Regulations, the Board of Education (Service of Teachers) Regulations (Grant Regulations No. 30) was in preparation during the year under review, but was not published in draft until after its close, and will, therefore, fall to be dealt with next year. We wish, however, to make acknowledgement here of the valuable assistance rendered to us in the preparation of these Regulations by the Associations of Local Education Authorities, various Associations of Teachers, the Consultative Committee, and other bodies. It is part of the established practice of the Board, where circumstances permit, to take the opinions of accredited and representative persons and bodies upon the issue of new Regulations, or the amendment of existing Regulations, and the exchange of views thus promoted is bound to be beneficial.

7. It will be remembered that in announcing their willingness to recognise for grant the expenditure incurred by Local Education. Authorities in the adoption of the standard scales of salary recommended by the Burnham Committee, the Board made certain stipulations and conditions, the most important of which was that the new scales should be brought into operation by three equal instalments starting from 1st April, 1921. The third and final stage of the carry-over" was thus reached on 1st April, 1923. Towards the end of the year under review it became necessary to make arrangements with the Burnham Committees for the consideration of revised scales to come into operation when the currency of the present scales runs out on 31st March, 1925; that matter will fall to be dealt with in our Report for next year.

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We record in Chapter II the voluntary abatement offered by the teachers of 5 per cent. on the allocated standard scale, and the appreciation expressed by the representatives of the Local Education Authorities on the Burnham Committees of the public spirit shown by the teachers in making this offer at a period of acute financial pressure. A similar tribute was paid to them by the President of the Board during the debate on the Board's Estimates in Committee of Supply on 31st May, 1923.

8. Among the other topics of departmental interest which are reviewed in the following pages, we may here draw special attention to the difficulties which have arisen in the field of Elementary Education over the enforcement of the provisions of Section 138 (1) of the Education Act, 1921, for the avoidance of broken terms; the decline in the admissions to Secondary Schools, and the gratifying extension in the length of school-life at those schools-both due in part to the prevailing industrial depression, but the latter due in part also to some stiffening of the conditions of admission; the provisions of Circular 1297 affecting staffing in Special Schools, which, while enabling Authorities to introduce certain economies not injurious to the efficiency of the schools, have also, as the Board always hoped and anticipated, resulted in an increase in the number of afflicted children accommodated in the schools; the new arrangements made under statute for the performance by Local Education Authorities, or the Ministry of Labour, of duties connected with the choice of employment; the reduction in the number of admissions to Training Colleges, and the suspension of the Acting Teachers Certificate Examination; the additional provision made for grants in aid of Adult Education; and the remarkable testimony borne from many quarters to the fruitfulness and success of the Board's Short Courses for teachers.

Another important development which should be mentioned here was the new stimulus given to the establishment of Juvenile Unemployment Centres for the benefit of boys and girls who are past the age of compulsory school attendance, but have been unable to find employment. Under the arrangements sanctioned in December, 1922, the central responsibility for the supervision of