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"In connection with these school returns it will be convenient to examine the
probable influence of the abolition of the Epidemic Grant. Under Article 88 of the
Education Code the local sanitary authority, acting on the advice of the Medical Officer
of Health, have power to exclude children from school on account of infectious disease.
In times of prevalence the exercise of the power given by this Article may cause a very
serious diminution of the school attendance and a consequent reduction of the Government
grant. In order that schools might not suffer by the exclusions made by the
sanitary authority a special grant under Article 101, known as the Epidemic Grant,
was provided. It reads as follows : —
"Where the Board are satisfied that by reason of a notice of the sanitary
authority under Article 88 or any provision of an Act of Parliament requiring
the exclusion of certain children, or by reason of the exclusion under medical
advice of children from infected houses, the average attendance has been
seriously diminished, and that consequently a loss of the annual grant would,
but for this Article, be incurred, the Board have power to make a special grant
not exceeding the amount of such loss in addition to the ordinary grant.
" In the provisional Code for 1903 this Article is abrogated, and in the Prefatory
Memorandum Mr. R. L. Morant states that ' After March 31st, 1903, the Board will
discontinue the special Epidemic Grant which has hitherto been allowed to schools in
compensation for loss of income in any particular year owing to the grant being payable
on a diminished attendance, while the expenditure on staff and maintenance remain
unreduced. The amounts payable under "this Article to individual schools have, as a
rule, been inconsiderable as compared with the total income and expenditure of the
year. Many difficulties, too, have been found incident to the administration of the
Article, and it is believed that the money spent under its provisions might better be
devoted to the improvement of the instruction given to pupil teachers. Arrangements
are accordingly being made to effect this.'
"By Article 101* it is obvious that it was not to the interest of school teachers or
attendance officers to hurry back to school children who were either suffering from
infectious disease, or came from houses in which such existed. They knew that
allowance would be made for these cases, and that the average attendance would not
be diminished from this cause.
" The result was that fairly accurate records of disease were kept both in the
voluntary schools and under the late School Board for London. There was then no
hampering of the sanitary authority through the desire to keep up the attendance.
" Previous to the abolition of the Epidemic Grant, if a teacher saw a child suffering
from a severe cough, suggesting whooping cough, or others suffering from similar
symptoms to the well known symptoms of measles, it was to their interest to exclude
such children until the existence or non-existence of the disease was confirmed.
" Now, however, it is clear that such cases are likely to be kept at schools during
the stage before mentioned, unless, as is frequently the case, the parents take the
matter in hand and keep the children at home. This is, of course, only a single
safeguard against the double one which existed previously.
" Under the present conditions, it is the interest of the school authority on the one
hand to keep up their average attendance when diminution is threatened from whatever
cause, and of the sanitary authority to keep down infectious disease, and though in the
schools controlled by the late School Board and now by the London County Council
there are various rules about re-admission of "contacts" and those who have
recovered from infectious disease, I have found that there is a tendency on the part of
the attendance officers to hurry the children back to school when insufficient time has
elapsed either for recovery or disinfection, and that this is fostered by the rivalry
which exists between the attendance officers of different districts to keep their averages
as high as possible. I have also reason to believe that the records of infectious disease,
notwithstanding statements to the contrary, are not so accurately or well kept as they
were previous to March, 1903, when this grant .was done away with. Of course the
answer to this is that a body like the London County Council would not countenance a
relaxation of the regulations regarding infectious diseases as I have mentioned. That
I quite believe, but at the same time it does not prevent over-zealous officers of the
Council acting in the way I have mentioned.
"In the case of one disease, viz., measles, I received so many complaints from our
District Inspectors about children being hurried back to school regardless of disinfection,
or the time they had been away, that I found it necessary to recommend your Council
to exercise powers under Article 88 and exclude all patients suffering from measles for
a month, "contacts" for three weeks, and none of them to be readmitted until
disinfection had taken place. It is therefore quite evident that the loss of the epidemic
grant has produced as regards measles tangible and far-reaching results, and no doubt
the same applies to many other diseases, and although the trouble regarding measles
has been stopped to a large extent, the tendency still remains to hurry the children
back and has to be constantly guarded against. The Article in question was of great
assistance to Medical Officers of Health and did away with all friction between the
sanitary and the school authorities as regards infectious disease, and I think that the
Board of Education were badly advised in doing away with it.
" These school notifications are useless if legal proceedings should become necessary
to enforce disinfection or any other section applicable to this disease. For such
proceedings a medical certificate is absolutely necessary. Of course one might say that
the Medical Officer could visit, but that is out of the question because by the time legal
proceedings become necessary in any particular case all symptoms of the disease have
gone, and even if be visited every case, which would be impossible, the rash would have
gone in the majority by the time he arrived.