SCHOOL ATTENDANCES

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 153, 16 July 1937, Page 6

SCHOOL ATTENDANCES

"Excellent Percentage" - "The average attendance of pupils expressed iii percentage of the roll was 92.9, an excellent percentage considering the difficult and trying circumstances experienced- last -term," said the report to the Hawke's Bay Education Board in Napier this morning of the actingj-secretary, Mr. F. W. Melliuish,upon attendances at schools in the board' s district during the first term of 1937. Compared with the corresponding period last year/ the average attendance was .9 per cent. higher. "Compared with the same term. of 1936, theJ difference in roll number is not great, being only 97 less, while the average attendance was aetually .9 per cent. higher, but a big decline is shown on the figures for the previous termi (i.e., tlie last term of 1936),. tho roll number showing a fall ,of 587, thougli here again the regularity of attendance is higher by .4 per -cent., said the report. "This tends to show, in my opimdn, that while the outbreak of infantilo paralysis did not. to the extent that may have been expected, affect the regularity of attendance (of pupils (indeed, the figures go to prove tho contrary) it must have had a considerable influence on parents in the matter of withholding the enrolment of the five-year-olds when school opened on March 1 last. There are unfortunateiy no statistics available to support this contention. but so many headmasters have, stated that their new enrolments i'ell short of expectations that improved figures will, I think, be the outcome as the year progresses."