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101
SCHOOL MEDICAL SERVICES.
LOCAL EDUCATION AUTHORITIES.
When the old School Boards were abolished under the 1902 Education
Act, county councils, county borough councils and the larger municipal
borough and urban district councils were made the local education
authorities for elementary education, though the responsibility for higher
education was placed only on the councils of the counties and county
boroughs. Boroughs of population of less than 10,000, and urban districts
of less than 20,000 at the time of the 1901 census could not be made local
education authorities. The effect of this was that Harrow with its very
high school population was not directly responsible for the education
services and so not for the administration of the school medical services.
By the Education Act 1944, only the councils of counties and county
boroughs were in future to be local education authorities. Provision
was made in part III of the First Schedule of the Act, for the creation of
excepted districts of areas of population of not less than 60,000 or of
school population of 7,000. The scheme of divisional administration of
education confirmed by the Minister of Education on the 24th July, 1945,
provides for the exercise by the Council of those functions delegated to
the divisional executive.
LOCAL SERVICES.
There are 55 school departments, of which 4 are secondary grammar,
10 secondary modern, one secondary technical and 40 primary.
The number of children on the school rolls approaches 25,000.
Development of School Medical Services.
Apart from the earlier acts relating to the special education of the
blind, deaf, defective and epileptic children and the Provision of Meals
Act of 1906, the act which established the foundation of the school medical
services as seen to-dav was the Local Education (Administrative Provisions)
Act of 1907. This required local education authorities to provide
systematic medical inspection of school children, and empowered them
to arrange for attention being given to their health and physical condition.
Just as the object of the Provision of Meals Act was to ensure that a child
should not because of hunger fail to benefit from the educational services
provided, so the underlying principle of this Act was the removal of those
handicaps which prevented the child deriving full benefit. The duties
laid down included those of providing systematic medical inspection, the
oversight of the sanitation of school buildings, the control of infectious
diseases, and the medical supervision of the school life of the children.
School medical officers and school nurses were appointed, and after the
examination of the child, advice was given to the parents as to the treatment
that should be obtained. Generally this was to be through existing
agencies, the treatment of minor ailments by school nurses and the
provision of spectacles being the only forms of activity it was anticipated
would have to be undertaken by the education authorities.