Public School Change

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30857, 16 September 1965, Page 17

Public School Change

(N.Z.P. A.-Reuter —Copyright) LONDON, Sept. 15.

Britain’s Labour Government is going ahead with its policy of integrating the public schools within the State system of education, the Minister of State for Education and Science (Mr Reg Prentice) said yesterday.

“Just because the details have not yet been announced, nobody should assume we are neglecting the matter.” he told the Incorporated Association of Preparatory Schools conference at Oxford.

“Our object is to put an end to the public school system as one of the dividing forces in our society. It would not be sufficient for them just to take a few scholarship boys and then carry on as before.

“On the other hand, we do not intend to put an end to all private education. This has never been our intention. “Without Mystique”

“We have no objection in principle to people paying for private education for their children, but we should prefer to see the private sector occupying the same kind of position as it does in most other countries —without the social mystique that surrounds the public schools here.

“We want to have education which is leading towards a mature democracy, a democracy in which people have a genuine feeling of social equality. “By equality 1 do not mean uniformity. I believe in an

equal right to be different, to express oneself ih the way one chooses untrammelled by some of the social barriers which Still disfigure our society.”