EDUCATION PROBLEM.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 45, 3 December 1940, Page 3

EDUCATION PROBLEM.

INSTRUCTION AND AIR RAIDS.

“BREAKDOWN” EXAGGERATED

LONDON, December 1. Figures relating to the education problem raised by air raids and evacuation were given by the Secretary for War (Mr R. A. Eden), who stated that talk of a “.breakdown in the education” of a. large proportion of children was a gross exaggeration. The total elementary and secondary school population in England and Wales was about 5,250,000. Of this number 1,500,000 were in neutral areas, which, generally speaking, we/re not disturbed, and school work was proceeding almost at the normal standard. In the reception areas there were 2,500,000 children, including 450,000 officially evacuated. A high proportion of this number were receiving full time education in spite of the additional numbers. Thus, four-fifths of the school population was receiving instruction which had reached a high state. About 1,000,000 children .remained in tlio evacuation areas and their position was not satisfactory. The parents’s refusal to evacuate them had created a difficult problem, but even here apart from a particular centre aind 1 some coastal towns, where the schools were still closed, the school attendance was being tolerably maintained. The problem before the education authorities twas how to shake down to wan* conditions and pass from emergency arrangements to something more stable. —British Official Wireless.