Education Economies
That the Ministry of Education should be under the necessity of cutting drastically the estimates for the building of new schools is deplorable, but in the existing circumstances Mr. Tomlinson is unquestionably taking the right course. It is true that the need for capital expenditure in this field is urgent. Quite apart from the problems of accommodation that the raising of the school age creates, new buildings for the two new categories of schools, the modern and the technical, are imperative, to say nothing of the enlargement and rehabilitation of many grammar schools to enable them to cope with the increased upward flow from the primary schools. The Ministry's main building programme at the end of 1948 comprised construction then in progress to the value of £33,000,000, as against £22,000,000 a year earlier, and to that must be added a secondary programme running to about £3,000,000. Those figures in them- selves represent no extravagance. They would not be criticised at all if times were normal. But there must be economies on capital expenditure, and Mr. Tomlinson is setting a valuable example to some of his colleagues. It -will be no light matter for Surrey, for example, to keep its projects within £1,000,000 instead of the expected £2,5oo,000, or for Kent to come down from £5,356,000 to £3,5oo,000. It could well be argued that the one national service that must in no circumstances be cut is education ; and unless like curtailments are to be made in the estimates of other departments the Ministry of Education should not be asked for sacrifices. But the cuts mean no immediate arrest of construction. The reduced estimates will cover as much work as can be finished in twelve months. It is consideration of the year after that that must wait.
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