PRIVATE SCHOOLS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21649, 20 May 1932, Page 7

PRIVATE SCHOOLS

ASTONISHING DISCLOSURES LONDON, May 12. Schools recalling Charles Dickens’s “ Dotheboys Hall ” and conductc 1 in bedrooms, kitchens, basements, and converted cellars by aged, bedridden, and blind or unqualified teachers are among the aston-' ishing disclosures of a Government committee. Reporting on conditions in private schools, the committee states that, while there are many excellent schools and the majority are above serious reproach, a small proportion are harmful to Hie pupils’ mental and physical welfare. A much larger proportion are seriously weak and inefficient.

One school for children aged seven to fourteen, is conducted in a third-floor room, with grave risk in case of fire. One pupil was certified mentally defective, one teacher is deaf and the other is wholly unqualified. At another school the principal is blind and the other teacher unqualified. A third school was held in a kitchen, and the 17 children attending it waited their turns for scats on an assortment of stools and chairs. A fourth was conducted around the bedside of a bedridden teacher. At a fifth the sole teacher was over 80 years of age.