7

E.—s

industries (including agriculture) practised in the district, and also lor their instruction in the English language and literature ; and, further, that the English Board of Education, recognizing the importance of the matter, instructed its Consultative Committee to advise as to whether any means, and, if so, what, could be devised for securing (1) that a much larger proportion of boys and girls on leaving the public elementary schools commence and continue attendance at evening schools than at present do so, and (2) that employers and other persons and bodies in a position to give effective help should co-operate in arranging facilities for such attendance on the part of their employees and in planning suitable courses and subjects for the schools and classes. After examining a large number of witnesses selected from employers, representatives of labour, Inspectors of Schools, local education authorities, teachers, and women, together with certain persons possessing special knowledge and experience, the committee arrived at certain definite conclusions which are embodied in the report adopted by the committee in May, 1909. Some of the more important of these conclusions are as follows :— (a.) Increased attention should be given to the connection between the continuation school and the public elementary school, with the view of lessening discontinuity of attendance. (_.) The age of exemption should at no distant period be raised to fourteen, subject to certain limitations, (c.) Junior employment registries should be established to give skilled advice to parents, managers, and teachers on the selection of suitable occupations for young persons. (d.) Head teachers in the public schools should be able to take part in the direction of the continuation school to which their pupils go. (c.) The present voluntary system of attendance at evening classes could be improved by effective encouragement from employers of labour, by the systematic visitation of the parents of children who are about to leave the public school, by the personal influence of the public-school teacher, by propaganda among workpeople, and by close co-operation on the part of the local authority with the managers of boys' and girls' clubs, and other voluntary agencies. ( f.) Pupils should be encouraged to attend continuation schools during the closing months of their public-school course, due precautions being taken to prevent overstrain. (g.) The committee believes that, though the present voluntary system might be much improved by the above methods, so long as the local authorities are under no obligation to provide continuation schools, so long as adolescents are under no obligation to attend them, and so long as employers are under no obligation to enable their young workpeople to attend classes at convenient hours, large numbers of young people will remain without the education they so sorely need. (h.) The committee therefore recommends that it should be the statutory duty of local authorities to make suitable provision of continuation classes from the time boys and girls leave the public school up to their seventeenth birthday, and that it should be lawful for local authorities to make by-laws for requiring the attendance at continuation classes to an age not exceeding seventeen years of any young person who is not otherwise receiving a suitable education; provided that such classes are not held more than two miles from his place of residence. (..) Further, that it should be the statutory duty of the employer of such young person to enable him to attend continuation classes for such period of time and at such hours as may be required by the by-laws of the local authority. (j.) An employer should be forbidden by penalty to employ or continue to employ any young person who fails to produce evidence of attendance at classes in conformity with the local by-laws.