The Plight of Education
The Workers' Educational Association have just issued a very valuable manifesto entitled " Public Education and the War." In it they describe with moderation the way in which education has suffered for the past fifteen months from being let slide from one makeshift to another, instead of being ever directed along a mapped and charted course; and they call for an immediate review by the War Cabinet or, if necessary, by a strong committee appointed to report to it. At the same time, the Board of Education and the Scottish Education Department should get full reports from their inspectors as to the position in evacuation, neutral, and reception areas ; and should publish figures showing, for each type of area, how many children are in it, how many are receiving full-time, half-time or less than half-time education, how many are receiving education in other ways, and how many are receiving no education at all. The manifesto goes to the root when it insists that school attendance should once more be made compulsory for all children, whether they are evacuated or not ; and it recognises that this cannot be enforced, unless all schools are more quickly and adequately provided with air-raid shelters. Scottish educa- tion seems at present to be suffering even more extensively than English.
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