OBSERVATIONS ON THE PROPOSED REVISION
OF THE GRANT IN AID CODE
May 8th 1939
2.
3.
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5.
Improvement of Educational Standards.
We gratefully endorse the proposal to make adequate provision for improvement in educational qualifications of the school staffs and in their remunderation.
Calculation based on Expenditure.
We also agree emphatically that the Grant in Aid should be proportionate to expenditure rather than to income, and we welcome the recognition of the value of the school buildings and the necessity for building funds.
Fundamental change in system.
We submit that the Report, if accepted, would change funda- mentally the relationship of proprietary schools to Government.
The present grant-in-aid relationship, which is similar to that in vogue in proprietary schools in the British Isles, and which we wish to retain, recognizes the value of the public service rendered by a voluntary educational corporation, and makes to it a Grant in Aid, which is only a fraction of the real value of the service rendered.
A system in which the final total of the financial assistance given depends on the margin of balance or loss in the working of the institution is, we contend, fundamentally different. The change proposed would give financial security, but destroy initiative and remove the incentive to economy.
A true Grant in Aid system, on the other hand, tends:-
to encourage initiative on the part of the school authorities; to leave opportunity and incentive to private beneficence; c) to promote variety in educational development.
b
No mention of Correspondent.
In this connection we note with concern the absence of any reference in the Report to the person of a Correspondent. We consider it essential that the Correspondent be retained as the representative of the Governing Body of the school.
Religious Orders.
We contend that the great service rendered to education by celibate religious orders is such that any system so calculated as to give to the taxpayer rather than to the Order the financial saving/
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.