asked the President of the Board of Education whether he will take action to allay the concern felt by teachers that, while boys taking a scientific course involving only a pass degree get exemption till July, 1942, with a further year at a university, honours students in non-scientific subjects are to be called up much sooner regardless of the fact that their qualifications may enable them to be more useful to the war effort?

asked the President of the Board of Education whether his attention has been called to anxiety aroused by the Memorandum of Guidance, recently issued by the Board to headmasters, with regard to the position of boys who are studying non-scientific subjects with a view to scholarship examinations; and, whether arrangements can be made to permit such boys who attain to scholarship standards to complete their period of study at school and have the opportunity of a year's course at the university, under approved conditions, before being called up for military service?

The need of the Armed Forces and of war industries for the service of persons with scientific and technical qualifications is very great. This consideration has been the sole factor in deciding that boys at school and young men at universities, who are due to register during the present academic year, and who are studying scientific and technical subjects shall have their calling-up deferred for a period if the appropriate Joint Recruiting Board so recommends. My right hon. Friend regrets the interruption of the educational careers of those who are studying non-scientific subjects, but he would not feel justified in pressing that these students should, in general, be treated differently from other young men. It has, however, been decided that a boy studying non-scientific subjects who is taking a scholarship examination during the present academic year shall at any rate be allowed to remain at school until he has taken that examination.

Are not students who are taking modern languages, for instance, as useful to the war effort as those who are taking a pass degree in science?

That is a matter of opinion, and those who are competent to judge and who have been consulted have not reached that conclusion.