MR. LLOYD IS EXPECTED TO SPEAK AT ABOUT 2.30 p.m. TODAY

SCHOOL BUILDING’S BIGGEST BOOM

Achievement of the Last Ten Years

   The last ten years have been the greatest single era of school building in Britain, said Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd, Minister of Education, when he opened Northampton’s new Technical High School to-day (Friday, February 28).  The period has surpassed even the great burst of school building in the 1870’s, when the main lines of our national system of education were first laid down.

   No Fewer than 2,644 new primary school and 1,136 new secondary schools had been completed by December, 1957.  By the end of that year over 2,052,000 new places had been provided.  And in spite of the size of the programme and its necessary rapid tempo, the actual cost of new schools had, by careful planning, been reduced by no less than one-fifth.

   Mr. Lloyd said there was a great future ahead for the secondary technical schools.  Their influence was vastly out of proportion to their numbers.  For many pupils they were in fact the first choice after passing the “eleven-plus” examination.  They provided courses of the grammar school type, the only difference being that there was a more conscious emphasis on science and technology.  The technical secondary schools could help the grammar schools to adapt their traditionally academic courses to the needs of an increasingly technological age. Indeed, to-day, said Mr. Lloyd, all secondary schools must be in some sense technical schools.

   The Minister emphasised the opportunities open to all children to-day, regardless of the type of secondary school they attended.  There was no finality about the “eleven-plus”, he said.  The courses at the top of the best secondary modern schools, and the career opportunities they opened up, were essentially no from those available in grammar and technical schools.