New Grammar School Recruits
One of the immediate effects of the coming into force of the Education Act, on April 1st, is that from then on all children deemed capable of profiting from secondary education will have access to a secondary school, whatever the means of their parents. A circular just issued by the Ministry lays down the conditions which will be applied to direct-grant grammar schools. It lays down that 25 per cent. of admissions must be offered free to pupils who have been at grant-aided primary schools ; and, in addition, a grammar school must be prepared to offer 25 per cent, of places to pupils nominated by the education authority if they satisfy the standard of admission, and in these cases the fees will be paid by the authority. But even in the case of pupils who are admitted to the remaining places, if they are day scholars, their parents may apply for a remission of fees in accordance with an approved income scale ; and the school will be reimbursed by the Ministry. Thus a secondary education will become open to every intelligent child in the country, rich or poor. His parents will pay nothing if their income (with one child only) does not exceed Ls los. a week ; and above that income the fees will be graduated according to means, the well-to-do paying the full amount. The time, of course, will come, and probably soon. when the existing schools will not be able to cope with the demand. More schools, of various types, will have to be provided. But that will take time. Next month, however, the new:y established principle begins to operate, and children in large numbers will put their feet on the second rung of the education& ladder. The complete aboli- tion of secondary school fees is clearly only a matter of tithe.
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