FROM NURSERY UP

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 112, 28 May 1937, Page 6

FROM NURSERY UP

-Own Correspondent)

Lady Astor's Plan For Child Education HAPPY GROWTH

(Bv Air Mail-

LONDON, May 6. A "Ten- Year Plan" for child educa« tion which already claims 1,000,000 sup> pai i ots has been lannched here by Lady Astor. The ceremony took place at Lady Astor's home in St. James's Squar© when a gTonp of social .workers, education ists, politieal leaders and otheri wero called together to hear the rea« sons why such a plan is deemed .neces* sary. . , Great "Britain spends somithing like £1,000.000 each year on education, but 80 per cent of the elementary schools i'c provides have been described as "• cross between prisou and barracks." Moreover, 1,500,000 or more children between the ages of 2 and 5 years are outirely unprovided for, although a large proportion of them come from fanrbes where the total income is less than £3 a week. But the new "Ten-Year Plan" is prepaTed to take care of the situation. It envisions the erection of school buildings designed to provide all the extornal things which make for happy growth. It envisions the setting up of nunery schools at one end of child life and ci! extended school days at the other. It sees something of what might he done in regard to adequate nutrition .by tho organisation of school. canteetis, and what might be done in regard to moral and social training by the organi isation of youth intere.sts immediately. school days are over and before young people are fully "grown-up." * The campaign, its promoters emphasise, is by no means directed "against'1 anything. It is not in any wayi anta« gonistic to the Board of Education, not to the local education authorities, no* to the Chancellor of t.he Exchequer. ' But it is a'fact that,. when British peojple want a thing done, they ara inclined'to do it themselves and to expect that, when, theix effort has been pijoved satisfactory, the Government will step in and take all further re^ sponsibility. On "this hypothesis "tha plan is going forward. ■ ■ -