View report page

132
Authority to the County Council in the case of all defective children over
the age of seven years:—
(a) Who have been ascertained to be incapable by reason of mental
defect of receiving benefit, or further benefit, in special schools or
classes, or who cannot be instructed in a special school or class
without detriment to the interest of other children, or as respects
whom the Board of Education certify that there are special
circumstances which render it desirable that they should be dealt
with under this Act by way of supervision or guardianship.
(b) Who on or before attaining the age of 16 are about to be
withdrawn or discharged from a special school or class, and in
whose case the local education authority are of opinion that it
would be to their benefit that they should be sent to an institution or
placed under guardianship.
Section 30 states:—Nothing in this Act shall affect the duties or powers
of local education authorities under the Education Acts; and the duty of
ascertaining what children over the age of seven and under the age of 16
(hereinafter referred to as defective children) are defectives, shall rest with
the local education authority as hereinafter provided, and not with the local
authority under this Act (the County Council); and such last mentioned
authorities shall have no duties as respects defective children, except those
whose names and addresses have been notified to them by the local education
authority under the provisions of this Act.
The Board of Education will shortly issue regulations under section 2 (2)
of the Act, which will be provisional and no doubt will be altered and added to,
as experience accumulates.
The Board of Education will issue a set of model arrangements for dealing
with mentally defective children.
Memo. The work of the Education Committee that was formerly optional
under the Act of 1899 is now compulsory. Thus the Education Committee
must make arrangements for ascertaining what children in their area are
defective; they must ascertain what children are incapable of receiving benefit,
or further benefit, from instructions in special schools or classes. They must
notify the latter children to the County Council as well as those children who
are about to be withdrawn from special schools or classes on account of age
limit.
The Education Committee of Edmonton have so far not made any arrangements
for the education of these children, and I can only repeat what has been
said in previous Annual Reports of your School Medical Officer, that it is highly