SCHOOL AGE IN BRITAIN.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LI, Issue 69, 20 February 1931, Page 7

SCHOOL AGE IN BRITAIN.

GOVERNMENT’S BILL.

(British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, Feb. 19. In the debate in the House of Lords on the Government’s Education Bill for raising the school leaving age from 14 to 15 years—it was rejected by the House by 168 votes to 22—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 difficult 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 postponement of the bill in the interest of the settlement of the problem of non-provided schools. The local authorities had already permissive powers to extend the school age. Lord Gorell. as a 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 J.abour peers, three Conservatives, Viscounts Cecil, Eslrer and Lord Teynliam, one Liberal peer, Lord Sandhurst, the Archbishop of York, and the Bishops of Liverpool, St. Albans, and Southwark. Lobbyists state that the Government will reintroduce the School Ago Bill in the House of Commons next session under the Parliament Act procedure. If it is carried twice it must be passed despite the Peers. The bill, in any event, cannot come into operation until it is accompanied by a money bill providing for church schools, regarding which an agreement with tiie managers has not been reached. The Government, in the circumstances, does not regard the situation the House of Lords has created as seriously inconvenient.