HEALTH AND EDUCATION SERVICES
SIR,—In reply to the letter from "Parent and Taxpayer " in which he complains of his inability to gain admission for his children to a State secondary school through lack of accommodation, it is to be noted that only when he was unable to enter his children for an independent school did he consider applying to the Local Education Authority. Presumably, therefore, any such authority ought to anticipate such possible and irregu- lar applications and keep places open in their schools for such contin- gencies—places that may not be utilised. Those who know a little of the complicated and detailed planning obligatory upon L.E.A.s to prepare development plans under the terms of the Education Act, 1944, realise how far ahead estimates have to made in anticipation of population shifts and the growth of child population and how little account can be taken of the wishes of parents who hitherto have not taken advantage of the State system of education.
In answer to "Parent's " first query of what would happen if all citizens who now send their children to private or independent schools should insist upon sending them instead to Government schools, it would be clearly unreasonable, to use the mildest term, to expect any L.E.A. to meet such a sudden and unpredictable emergency. Assuming that such a surprising manifestation of social sensibility were to arise overnight, I assume that it would not be beyond the power of the State to incor- porate (I tactfully avoid the current term of abuse) within the State system all the apparatus of private and independent schools to meet such
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