SCHOOLS TO REOPEN

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20084, 2 November 1939, Page 5

SCHOOLS TO REOPEN

EVACUATION AREAS CITIES IN BRITAIN (British Official Wireless.) Reed. noon. RUGBY, Nov. 1. Lord De La Warr. in the House of Lords, referring to the fact that more than half the school children who, if their parents had taken advantage of i the Government's voluntary scheme for evacuating them to the reception area, could be at school in comparative safety, were, in fact, still in vulnerable areas and receiving little or no education, said there were two solutions, namely, the compulsory removal of all the remaining children out of the vulnerable areas—a measure the Government would be unwilling to lake in any but the most desperate circumstances—and. secondly, some measure of reopening schools in vulnerable areas, which was the course on which the Government had decided. This decision must not be taken as an all-clear signal for a return to evacuation areas. The Government had been influenced solely by the fact that, as a nation, they could not afford to let 750,000 children grow up without education, school discipline or medical care. The numbers would have to be limited and many schools would be operating on a double-shift basis. The Government, nevertheless, had decided that as many schools as possible in the evacuation area should be opened for the education of children of parents who desired them to attend.