| Description | Central England Area Meeting/Warwickshire Monthly Meeting has had a long standing interest in education and in October 1909, an Education Committee was appointed by the Monthly Meeting to identify the educational needs of the Monthly Meeting. Its duties involved:
-the preparation and maintenance of an up-to-date list of all the school-aged children in the Monthly Meeting so that the Committee could obtain knowledge about the educational circumstance of children within the Meeting and tender advice or assistance to their parents
-the provision of advice on all matters relating to education, bursaries and scholarships, including local schools and boarding schools and ranging from primary education through to university, as well as Woodbrooke and its allied institutions
-the administration of all educational grants whether from Monthly Meeting or the Education Committee
-highlight to Friends the importance of making plans about their children's education early via educational assurance policies and other methods
-provide support to those Friends who were teachers or who were considering entering the profession.
The Monthly Meeting has always aimed to ensure that all parents in the Monthly Meeting who wanted to send their children to a Friends School would not be prevented from doing so by a lack of funds. To this end the Education Committee is included in the Monthly Meeting Consolidated Plan and Friends have long been encouraged to subscribe to its funds. In addition, the Joint Bursaries Scheme was established in the 1960s and involved each Friends' School, the central Friends' Education Council and each Monthly Meeting to provide funds together which were then distributed according to the needs of those attending Friends Schools, irrespective of the funds which happen to be available to particular schools or in particular areas. Much of the Committee's work involves assessing each application for funding, and administering the funds.
Some trusts which had been established with similar functions, such as the Cadbury Sisters Scholarship, by the second half of the 20th century had limited funds remaining to make grants, so it was decided to transfer any remaining income to the Education Committee so that grants could continue to be made. See SF/2/1/1/10/4/10 for the Cadbury Sisters Scholarship papers. |