THE ENGLISH EDUCATION ACT.

Kumara Times, Issue 808, 3 May 1879, Page 4

THE ENGLISH EDUCATION ACT.

The " Daily News " of the 21st January says :—Lord Sandon's Education Act of 1876 arrived at another stage in its progressive application afc the beginning of the present year. The principal of the Act, which will come into full operation in 1881, is that no child between the ages of ten and fourteen is to be employed 3 in any labor unless he has passed an examination in the Fourth Standard, or has attended school 250 times yearly for five years since he was live years old, or has satisfied the requirements of any educational bye-laws which may be in force in his parish. During the year 1879 this rule will be modified, and a child of ten may be sent to work if he has passed an examination in the Third Standard, or has been to Bchool 250 times in each of the three years since his fifth birthday. The requirements of the Third Standard are not onerous. They consist in reading Bhort paragraphs from an advanced, but still elementary reading-book, writing a sentence slowly, dictated from the same book, and working sums in long division, compound addition and substraction, including pounds, shillings, and pence. Labor certificates will therefore, during this year, be granted to children ten years old who have fulfilled these conditions. The exemption Btill remains in force that any child lawfully at work on or before the 15th August, 1876, may continue at work as though the Act had not been passed ; while all children who were eleven years old before the Ist of January, 1877, are practically outside its operation this year. For the purpose of facilitating the issue of these labor certificates the managers of every Bchool must send to the School Board or the School Attendance Committee of its district a list of all the children in the school and the number of attendances each child has made during the year, except such as may have been made before he was five years old. It will be interesting to the public to know in the next education report how far these returns are made and howtheße labor certificates continue' to work.