PUBLIC CONTROL OF ALL SCHOOLS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVII, Issue 87, 11 April 1906, Page 5

PUBLIC CONTROL OF ALL SCHOOLS.

BIBLE TEACHING PROVIDED.

OTHER IMPORTANT CHANGES.

CBy- Cable.—Press Association.—copyritfnt.l

LOXDOX, April 10. The President of the Board of Education (Mr Birreliy has introduced the new Education Bill. It enacts that from the beginning of 1908 all the elementary schools shall become ';provided" schools, and that public control shall be complete. There shall be no religious tests for teachers, bnt it is provided that the ordinary staff shall give simple Bibleteaching from nine until a-quarter to ten a.m. There is to be no catechism or distinctive religious formularies, and the attendance is not to be compulsory until a-quarter to ten. The local authority is to arrange with the owners of voluntary schools for the use of the schoolhonses. and to maintain the fabric at a cost of about £260,000 yearly. The owners are to retain the use of these buildings during the evenings, and also on Saturdays and Sundays. Religious instruction of a special character may be given on two mornings a week if this is made a condition of the transfer of voluntary schools. Such instruction is to be by special instructors, who are not to be paid by the local authority. The authorities of urban areas are empowered in the case of transferred voluntary schools to permit ordinary teachers at the expense of the denominations concerned to give special religious instruction daily if the parents of fourfifths of the children attending desire it, and if there is accommodation in the other class of schools of the district for children whose parents do not desire, such denominational instruction. The BiE proposes., besides the existing exchequer grants, to make an annual grant of £1,000.000. The actual cost thrown on the local authority will depend upon the spirit of mutual concession. A Commission of three "is to be appointed, the legal element predominating, to- deal with the schools held under trusts*. The jurisdiction, and not the law, is to be altered. It is believed that a majority of the schools will accept the transfer conditions. The Bill establishes a National Couni cil of Education for Wales.