SCHOOL ATTENDANCE.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9435, 4 May 1909, Page 7

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 inspectors 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law up to the Fifth Standard, of the children who enter the Third Standard'in this district nearly 6 per cent, are withdrawn before they reach the Fourth Standard, 30 per cent, before they reach the Fifth Standard, and 85 per cent, before they reach the Sixth Standard.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 15,013. 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 he called the legal attendor, who knows so well the law requires that he absents himself regularly two half-days 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, he best met hv 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 unsatisfaotory’calas justifies the boards in this recommendation. With tactful administration and proper exemption- safeguards, such an amendment of the law would not invove hardship. As you are aware, the amendment here recommended is already in operation in the more progressive of the United States.”