secretary; and provided for the transfer to this board of the powers of the Charity Commissioners in relation to educational endowments; also for the association with the board of a consultative committee, consisting as to not less than two-thirds of persons qualified to represent the views of university and other bodies interested in education, for the purpose (1) of framing a register of qualified teachers, and (2) of advising the Board of Education upon any matters referred to the committee by the board. The administrative reorganization of the Education Office was completed shortly after the passing of the act of 1902, when a tripartite division was adopted to correspond with the three branches of education with which the Board of Education is concerned, viz. elementary, secondary and technological.
No law of recent years has excited an acuter or more prolonged controversy than the Education Act of 1902, and amid the dust of religious and political strife it is not easy for contemporaries to view it objectively and in its true proportions. Nevertheless, considered historically, the act becomes intelligible as the product Act of 1902,
general principles.of the forces, partly religious and partly educational, which have been already described. The immediate impulse for this measure must be sought in the agitation that during the preceding decade had been gathering force among the adherents of the Established and Roman Catholic churches for equality of financial treatment as between voluntary and board schools. It must be placed to the credit of the constructive statesmanship of the Conservative party that it availed itself of an ecclesiastical agitation to take an important step forward in the organization of national education. The difficulty inherent in such a measure was the admitted difficulty of securing public control, as a necessary concomitant of public maintenance, without jeopardizing or destroying the special religious character of the voluntary schools. The act of 1902 sought to solve this problem, so difficult of solution under democratic conditions, upon the principle of a division of financial responsibility justifying a corresponding division of control between the voluntary managers and the local authority. The constitution of the local authority to be charged not only with the delicate duty of participating in the dual control of the voluntary public elementary schools, but also with the responsible task of co-ordinating public higher with public elementary education, presented features of controversy only less formidable than the purely religious question itself. Boldly reversing the settlement of 1870, the act of 1902 abolished the parochial school boards, and with them the system of ad hoc election, and made the county councils, already seised of technical and secondary education under the Technical Instruction Acts, the local authorities for all forms of education, thus reverting to the solution propounded by Conservative statesmanship in the middle period of the 19th century and endorsed by an important memorandum contributed by Lord Sandford (formerly permanent secretary of the Education Department) to the report of the Cross Commission. The unquestionable niggardliness and inefficiency of many small country school boards, which had been foretold by the prescience of the Newcastle Commissioners, constituted the chief educational argument for the selection of the wider area so far as the interests of elementary education alone were concerned. On the other hand, experience has shown that in the rural districts against the undoubted gain in general efficiency there must be set a certain loss on account of the decay of local and personal interest consequent upon the centralization of authority in the hands of the county councils. Account, too, must be taken of the comparative heaviness with which a uniform county rate is apt to press upon sparsely populated agricultural parishes, especially in counties which include considerable industrial districts. Notwithstanding these minor drawbacks, it may be said that upon the whole the best opinion has endorsed the policy of 1902 with respect to the area of administration. At any rate it has been necessary to recognize the impracticability of disestablishing the strongly organized provincial authorities which the act brought into being, and proposals for amendment in this particular have been confined to schemes, favoured in principle by all parties, for securing some measure of decentralization and delegation of powers calculated to restore and stimulate local interest without derogating from the financial and administrative responsibility of the county council.
The principal provisions of the act of 1902 may be summarized as follows:—
Part I. Local Education Authority. The council of every county and of every county borough is the local education authority for the purposes of the act, i.e. for both higher and elementary education, but for the purpose of elementary education autonomous powers are conferred upon boroughs with a population of over 10,000, and urban Act of 1902, summary of provisions.districts with a population of over 20,000 (§ 1).
Part II. Higher Education. “The L.E.A. (local education authority) shall consider the educational needs of their area and take such steps as seem to them desirable, after consultation with the Board of Education, to supply or aid the supply of education other than elementary, and to promote the general co-ordination of all forms of education.” For this purpose the application of the money received by the local authority under the Local Taxation (Customs and Excise) Act 1890, heretofore optional, is made compulsory, and power is given to levy a rate which in the case of a county is not to exceed two pence in the pound, or such higher rate as the county council with the consent of the Local Government Board may fix (§ 2). Concurrent powers are given to the councils of non-county boroughs and urban districts, with the limit of a penny rate (§ 3). A council must not require any particular form of religious instruction or observance, but the usual conscience clause in schools, colleges, or hostels provided by the council is modified by a provision for facilities for any particular religious instruction to be given at the request of parents of scholars at such times and under such conditions as the council think desirable, otherwise than at the cost of the council (§ 4).
Part III. Elementary Education. (1) Powers and duties. School boards and school attendance committees are abolished and their powers and duties are transferred to the L.E.A., who are also to be responsible for and have the control of all secular instruction in public elementary schools not provided by them (§ 5).
(2) Management of schools. (a) For public elementary schools provided by the L.E.A. (now officially styled “council schools”): (1) in counties, there is to be a body of six managers, viz. four appointed by the county council and two by the borough or urban district council, or parish council or parish meeting as the case may be, called in the act the minor local authority; (2) in non-county areas, the L.E.A. (being the borough or urban district council) may, if they think fit, appoint a body of managers consisting of such number as they may determine (§ 6 [1]).
(b) For schools not provided by the L.E.A. (voluntary schools) the act directs that there shall be a body of six managers, of whom four are to be “foundation managers,” and two are to be appointed as follows: in counties, one by the L.E.A. and one by the minor local authority, and in autonomous boroughs or urban districts both by the borough or urban district council (§ 6 [2]). Directions for the appointment of foundation managers are given by § 11, which in effect declares that, unless the trust deed of the school provides for the appointment of the required number, the foundation managers must be appointed under an order of the Board of Education, in making which the board are to have regard to the ownership of the school building and to the principles on which the education given in the school had been conducted in the past. It was found necessary for the board to make over 11,000 of these orders, a heavy task which was rendered the more formidable by the controversial character of the questions arising upon trust deeds as to the mode of appointment and the qualifications of managers.
(3) Maintenance of schools (§ 7). (a) Powers. The L.E.A. are required to maintain and keep efficient all public elementary schools which were necessary (i.e. which, as defined by § 9, have an average attendance of not less than thirty), under certain specified conditions, of which the most material are as follows. The managers must carry out the directions of the L.E.A. as to the secular instruction to be given in the school, including any directions with respect to the number and educational qualifications of the teachers, and for the dismissal of any teacher on educational grounds (§ 7 [1] [a]). The consent of the L.E.A. is required to the appointment of teachers, but that consent may not be withheld except on educational grounds; and the consent of the authority is also required to the dismissal of a teacher unless the dismissal is on grounds connected with the giving of religious instruction (§7 [1] [c]).
(b) Liabilities. The managers are required to provide the school premises to the L.E.A. for use as a public elementary school free of charge, except that a rent is payable for the teacher’s residence where one exists; and the managers are further required out of funds provided by them to keep the school premises in good repair and to make such alterations and improvements in the buildings as might reasonably be required by the L.E.A. On the other hand, the L.E.A. are required to make good such damage as they consider to be due to fair wear and tear of rooms used by them (§ 7 [1] [d]).
