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211
to the Maternity and Child Welfare Committee regarding the
difficulty experienced by mothers in arranging for the admission
to schools in the area of children between 3 and 5 years of age.
In that report it was suggested that, if it was impossible to
have these children admitted to the infants' departments of
ordinary elementary schools, the question of a Nursery School
or Day Nursery to accommodate the more urgent cases ought
to be considered.
The Education Authority has recently taken steps to
increase the number of nursery classes in ordinary Elementary
Schools in the area.
In previous reports I have dealt with the administrative
confusion and duplication of effort which result from the fact
that we have two differently constituted Committees and their
independently appointed staffs dealing with the same child
from a health point of view. The ideal arrangement would
undoubtedly be for one or other authority to have the whole
responsibility for the care of the pre-school child placed upon
it. As long as we have two authorities sharing the responsibility,
careful definition and co-ordination of their respective
functions is necessary for smooth working ; and I suggest that
the relative responsibilities of the two Committees with regard
to the health supervision of children attending Nursery Classes
and schools might be considered.