STATE AID

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 149, 21 December 1945, Page 8

STATE AID

SOLDIERS' CHILDREN

EDUCATION FACILITIES

Following on a recent decision that rehabilitation assistance for children of deceased or totally disabled servicemen should be, confined to education and trade training, the Rehabilitation Board has reviewed the whole field in these spheres to discover the best ways to help. As a result of these inquiries, made by the Board in conjunction with other interested Departments, the Government has decided that the primary and secondary education of such children should be handled by. the Education Department in collaboration with the war pensions authorities.

"It has also been decided that postsecondary educatioii and where it is required, post-primary trade training should be the responsibility of the Rehabilitation Board. . This was done because it was felt that the board's interest in the children as rehabilitation subjects would normally commence when they left secondary, school to take up employment or carry on with higher education, or when, they left primary school with the object of starting work and particularly of learning a trade. "Under the recent amendment to the War Bursaries Regulations the amount payable durin- the secondary- education of the children concerned amounts to £25 a year, where the education is on a full-time basis. There are besides, the basic pension of £2 10s a week for the widow, and a pension of 10s a week for every child attending primary or secondary school, there being no age limit.

It is hoped that, given this encouragement, guardians of the children of deceased or totally disabled servicemen, of whom most are war widows, will give full opportunity to chidren