London, Feb. 8.
School attendance in evacuation areas is to be made compulsory to save the children from growing demoralization. This was announced in the House of Lords yesterday by the President of the Board of Education, Earl De La Warr.
He made this announcement in reply to a motion by the Archibishop of Canterbury asking the Government for a statement of educational policy.
Earl De La Warr said that out of nearly 1250000 children now in danger areas, some 400,000 were receiving no schooling or care at all.
At whatever risk of air raids, and he believed the risk to be still great, that situation could not be allowed to continue, and from now on they must see that every child went to school somewhere.
If parents were unwilling to send their children to the comparative safety of reception areas, then they must send them to schools in towns.
Full-time schooling would be the Objective but he would regard half-time provision for all children by the beginning of April as an acceptable minimum, Earl De La Warr added—
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.