Special reports on educational subjects, 1896-7.

Date:
1897
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Special reports on educational subjects, 1896-7. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    18/764 (page 10)
    the administration of the education grants under the supervision of a special department. One of the first acts of the Committee ot U)unCll was the establishment of a system of inspection as a condition of public aid. In 1843 the Committee of Council ottered for the first time grants towards the erection of training colleges, the building or enlargement of teachers' houses and the provision of school furniture and apparatus. In 1846 a part of the annual Parliamentary grant was made applicable to a new purpose, viz., the augmentation of teachers' salaries, the payment of stipends of pupil-teachers and of allowances' to the teachers who trained them, and the establishment of Queen's Scholarships to enable pupil-teachers at the end of their apprenticeship to enter a training college. In 1853 direct pay- ments were first made from the Parliamentary grant towards the annual income of schools in the form of capitation grants for each scholar making a certain number of attendances. These capitation grants, at first limited to schools in agricultural districts or unincorporated towns, were shortly afterwards extended to all schools. The office of Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education was established in 1856. Two years later a Royal Commission was appointed, with the Duke of Newcastle as chairman, to report on the state of popular education in England. During the years 1832-1860, the annual Parliamentary grant towards elementary education in Great Britain increased from 20,000?. to 798,167?. From the establishment of the Committee of Council on Education in 1839 to 1860, the total Parliamentary grants amounted, 4,378,183?. Of this sum a little over a million pounds had been spent on building, enlarging, repairing, and furnishing elementary schools ; 172,000?. had been spent on the erection and equipment of training colleges; 417,000?. in annual grants to training colleges; 460,000?. in augmenting the salaries of certificated school masters and mistresses, or in paying the salaries of assistant teachers; 1,487,000/. in paying stipends of pupil-teachers and allowances for their special instruction ; and 355,000?. in inspection.* (2.) After the presentation of the report of the Duke of New- castle's Commission in 1861 the Government introduced the Revised Code which abolished payments from the Parliamentary grant to individual teachers, and consolidated all the payments to each school (as distinguished from building grants) into a capitation grant, payable to the managers and based on the results of the attendance and the results of individual examina- tion of the scholars. The conditions of the Revised Code were somewhat amended in 1862, but the principle of payment by results on individual examination (except in the case of children under seven years of age) was retained, and it continued for many years to be the fundamental principle on which the Parliamentary grant was distributed to the elementary schools. In i867 a modification of the Code encouraged instruction beyond the * Duke of Newcastle's Commission Report, Vol. I., p. 677.