Board of Education, Technical Branch, and Ministry of Education, Schools Branch:...

Files of the Board of Education, Technical Branch, and Ministry of Education, Schools Branch concerning junior technical schools.

The files include applications for recognition, H.M. Inspectors' comments, and various correspondence relating to local and general aspects of technical education for young people.

The impact of the Second World War is reflected in the diminution of material on the files during the period 1939-1944, as restrictions on educational building and inspection visits were imposed. New material appeared on the files during the war relating to special problems arising from evacuation of the pupils away from the danger areas and the use of premises for other than educational purposes.

Papers preserved show the efforts of junior technical schools to provide courses to meet the need identified in Circular 1582 (5th February 1942) which drew attention to the urgent national need for more skilled workers in the building industry.

Files on schools of nautical training, are also included in this series.

Alphabetically in county order for England and Wales; papers relating to the acquisition of sites and buildings are given separate piece numbers.

The Junior Technical Schools series of files were accordingly closed in 1945 and subsequent papers were classified as Secondary Technical Schools and merged with Secondary School files.

• Board of Education, Technical Branch, 1902-1944
• Ministry of Education, Schools Branch, 1944-1964

Topics

Labour

Conflict

Construction industries

Education

Operations, battles and campaigns

By the end of the nineteenth century the need to provide preliminary technical education for young persons had been recognised by the establishment of trade schools which prepared school leavers for employment in particular local trades.

The steady growth of these schools led to the introduction in 1913 of the Regulations for Junior Technical Schools, that is day schools which provided courses for boys and girls for two or three years after leaving public elementary schools and which continued the general education of their pupils but at the same time prepared them for industrial employment.

These regulations recognised trade schools as providing a distinct type of technical education and removed them from the miscellaneous body of work known as technical day classes which received parliamentary grant under Article 42 of the Regulations for Technical Schools.

The Regulations for Junior Technical Schools were subsequently incorporated in the Regulations for Technical Schools, Schools of Art and Other Forms of Provision of Further Education, 1914, and succeeding Regulations, until the Education Act, 1944, established the Schools as an integral part of secondary education under the Primary and Secondary Schools (Grant Conditions) Regulations, 1945.

Schools of nautical training received grant aid under the Regulations for Schools of Nautical Training which were introduced in 1913 and were incorporated in the revised Regulations for Further Education, 1934.