The, Minister of Education is biding his time, as he
necessarily must, over a revision of the Burnham Scale on the lines recently recommended by the Burnham Committee. The proposals have not yet been (or if so have only just been) put officially before him, but I shall be very much surprised if he considers them adequate. Meanwhile the position is little less than desperate, as regards science teachers in particular. From all sides I hear of the inability of both headmasters and headmistresses to get properly qualified science teachers, for the simple reason that the terms offered by industry to scientists are so much more attractive ; in some schools the science teaching has had actually to be curtailed for this reason. The thing works round in a circle. The teachers are not flowing in sufficient numbers from the universities to the schools, and in consequence boys going up to take science degrees are not being well enough grounded to ensure a good performance at college. The only thing likely to prevent this from going on is to pay assistant-masters better.
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