SCHOOL AGE BILL

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 42, 19 February 1931, Page 11

SCHOOL AGE BILL

REJECTED BY LORDS

ARGUMENT OF ADVOCATES

CHANCE FOR THE POOR

(British ODlclal Wireless.) (Received 19th February, 11 a.m.) RUGBY, 18th February. The House of Lords by 168 votes to 22 rejected the Government's Education Bill for raising the school leaving ago from 14 to 15 years. Lord Sanderson said that all arguments against the Bill were the same as those used against every educational advance for sixty years. Much of his life had been spent in teaching working men and women, who found it most diflieult to bridge the gap lost by leaving school too soon. Those who had had longer at school had not better, brains, but they were better equipped for further studies. * Earl Beauchamp advocated the post- j ponement of the Bill in the interest of j the settlement of the problem of nonprovided- schools. The local authorities had already permissive powers to extend the school age. Lord Gorell, as member of the Hadow Committee for the reorganisation of education, considered that the opponents of the Bill would be voting against educational progress. Lord Ponsonby said that economy was not the real motive of the opposition. "You are going to vote en masse," he said, "against the principle of extra years of "schooling for poor children.' The country will thus interpret your action." The rejection of the motion was carried by 168 votes to 22. The minority consisted of fourteen Labour peers, three Conservatives, Viscounts Cecil, Esher, and Lord Toynham, one Liberal peer, Lord Sandhurst, the. Archbishop of York, and the Bishops of Liverpool, St. Albans, and Southwark.