CHILDREN WITHOUT SCHOOLS
IN passing a unanimous resolution that "it is desira- able that compulsory school attendance should be restored as soon as possible" the Manchester Education Committee has given a lead which will be appreciated by educationists in all parts of the country. The present neglect of children in the evacuation areas is having mis- chievous results which, unless swiftly counteracted, may not be undone in a life-time. It arises from the fact that the programme of evacuation has to a large extent broken down. Instead of the single problem of provid- ing in the reception areas for all the children normally resident in danger zones, there is the double problem of dealing with an uncertain number of them there, and with the remainder, a majority, who were never evacuated or have drifted home in the last four months. The gravity of the situation has been staring us in the face from the first. The time has passed for thinking only in terms of makeshift emergency measures. The adoption of a clear-cut policy has become imperative.
The difficulties with which the authorities have had to contend are obvious enough. It was expected that London and other big towns would be bombed at the outset of war, and it was rightly decided to make the fullest provision for evacuating the school-children and their teachers. Schooling in these areas came to an end. But a large proportion of the parents ignored the advice given them, and kept their children at home. The bombs did not come. Weeks of immunity passed, adding to the sense of security, and more and more parents allowed their children to return to the towns, where there were no schools open, few teachers, no regular medical inspection, and no discipline. Even if the schools had not been already taken over for military or civil defence purposes, they were unprotected, and the Board of Education and the local authorities, recognising that the possibility of bombardment today is not very much less than it was in September, were unwilling to expose the children to danger when under their care.
Long before the end of the year it was known that evacuation had failed to solve the problem of the children in the danger zones. In December there were more than 900,000, out of the normal total of 1,600,000, children in the evacuation areas. The measures that were then taken to deal with the situation were wholly inadequate. The Education Committees were empowered to re-open schools, but they had difficulty in getting them back from their emergency occupants, and when they did they had to satisfy the authorities that they were adequately protected against air-raid. All that has been done up to the present is to provide part- time education for a limited number of children, in the older groups, whose attendance is not compulsory, whilst the majority are "running wild" without any sort of teaching, discipline, or regular medical care. Even a short period of neglect in the initial ages of childhood may do great harm, and it will be obvious to everyone that if the neglect is allowed to continue month after month the results may be permanent and disas- trous. Alderman Woolam at Manchester spoke of instances of children committing offences such as stealing, molesting old people, and others rarely known before the war. Alderman Wright Robinson pointed out that a large proportion of the school population in the large cities were subject at an impressionable age to all the dangers of deterioration which unemployment brings. Lady Simon called attention to another fact which has not been sufficiently realised, that under many bye-laws children of twelve if they are not attending school may be employed up to a maximum of five hours a day. When attendance is not compulsory the oppor- tunity of setting children to earn money may actually be an incentive to keep them away from school. The time has come when the Board of Education must face a problem which can no longer be dismissed as tem- porary, and demands a considered policy and swift action.
The first thing to be done is to get back the schools or, at the least, secure suitable alternative buildings. The Government should issue orders that school-buildings, now used for Civil Defence or by the military authori- ties, should be restored for their proper purpose at an early date, and the Education Authority should take steps to provide them with the best possible shelters. In view of the fact that the danger comes from the presence of the children in the evacuation areas, and is no greater in a school than in a private house, in the streets, or in a cinema, the opening of the schools should not be delayed till the maximum protection has been completed. It should be explained to the parents that whilst every- thing will be done that can be done to diminish danger, there still remain risks to which they expose their children by keeping them at home. As soon as this first indispensable step has been taken—that of provid- ing schools—then without further delay school attendance, as the Manchester Education Committee recommends, should once again become compulsory. In an admirable pamphlet dealing with this subject (The Children in War-Time) Lady Simon suggests that compulsory education should be enforced on April 1st next, and that by February 1st parents should make their final choice between having their children educated in a reception or in an evacuation area.
But Lady Simon does not go far enough. The impli- cation of her argument is that the parents, and the parents alone, are to blame for the retention of the children in danger zones and the failure of evacuation. The Ministry of Health and the Board of Education should not be encouraged to accept a view so consoling to their self-esteem. Evacuation has broken down because the provision in reception areas has never gone far beyond the first emergency stage, and has not yet begun to assume the form which it must assume if it is to meet a continuing need. Lady Simon, it is true, does suggest the appointment of a Committee of Inquiry to survey the problems in the reception areas, with a view to the better provision of school buildings, billets and other necessities. Such a Committee should certainly be appointed, but in full recognition of the fact that a satisfactory response from parents is extremely unlikely until proper camp schools, with sleeping accommoda- tion, catering, and supervision, have been prepared and organised, and some assurance given that the children will receive attention comparable with that given to children in voluntary boarding-schools. That is a responsibility of the Government, and the failure of the departments concerned to undertake or even seriously face that responsibility is the root cause of the failure of evacuation.
Previous page
