SCHOOL ATTENDANCE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 458, 8 May 1909, Page 4

SCHOOL ATTENDANCE.

SOME SIGNIFICANT FIGURES. “ There are two features of the attendance problem which merit more careful attention than they receive,” states a report by the ftxspectors of the Wellington Education Board on the subject of school attendance. “ Notwithstanding the existence of a compulsory attendance law up to the Fifth Standard, of the children who enter the Third Standard in this district nearly 6 per cent are withdrawn before they reach the Fourth Standard, 20 per cent before they reach the Fifth Standard, and 35 per cent before they reach the Sixth Standard. Thus, the Third Standard fell from 2016 in 1905 to a Fourth Standard of 1704 in 1907, and when the average of all pupils attending had increased from 14,071 to 15,0x2. An examination of your reports shows a similar shrinkage in numbers throughout the Dominion as the pupils advance from the Third to the Sixth Standard.

“A second unsatisfactory feature of 'our school life is the growth in numbers of what may be called the legal attender, who knows so well what the law requires that he absents himself regularly two halfdays a week. The case of the legal attender will, in the opinion of my board, and, as it has ascertained, of nearly every other board in the Dominion, be best met by an amendment of Section 149, Education Act, 1908, with a view to compel the attendance, every day, of all pupils of compulsory age, except where satisfactory reason for absence is given. The increase in the number of pupils of this somewhat unsatisfactory class justifies the boards in this recommendation. With tactful administration and proper exemption safeguards, such an amendment of the law would not involve hardship. As you are aware, the amendment here recommended is already in operation in the more progressive of the United .States.”