OVERCROWDING PRIMARY SCHOOLS.

Taranaki Daily News, 10 July 1919, Page 7

OVERCROWDING PRIMARY SCHOOLS.

METHOD OF COMPUTING ATTENDANCES. A letter was received yesterday by the Tar,«inaki Education Board from th<> North Canterbury branch of the N-Z.E.I:, bringing under notice a proposal for reform in ,the method of computing attendances at primary schools. The letter stated that the present system,of basing the floor space and grade of a primary school on the average attendance is, in the opinion of the branch, entirely detrimental to the best interests of education for the following reasons: — (1) The number of pupils actually attending a school exceeds the average attendance by at leaßt 10 per cent. A school, to maintain an average attendance of 600 requires a roll of 060, and yet accommodation is provided only for the smaller number. The result is obviously over-crowding with its attendant evils, lowered vitality and frequent epidemics. (2) The teacher is responsible for the education of all the'children on the roll, and a similar responsibility is placed on the Education Board and Committees; board architects must, however, by Departmental regulations, base their calculations on the average attendance. (3) Weather conditions and epidemics may make the average attendance quite unworkable. Last winter's experience in Canterbury affords a good example. The proposal of the branch was that the average attendance shoul be replaced by a "weekly attendance," which would be computed as follows: Every child that makes one or more half-day attendances during the week should be counted. For example, in a school "of 100 pupils, 5 pupils fail to make any attendance during the week: the weekly 'attendance would be 95; if every pupil attended during at leaßt one half-day, the attendance would be counted as 100. The advantages would be: Ample seating accommodation would be secured: it would obviate the disastrous effect on the average attendance caused at present, by two or three wet days during tlm week; no child would be counted who was not a "bona fide pupil of the school. The present weekly roll number may include children on the rolls of other schools. In England this system of calculating attendances has been adopted j for capitation purposes. Returns furnished by a number of schools in the branch's district show the average attendance (under the present system) to be approximately 90 per cent, of the roll number, while the weekly attendance would be about 90 per rent. The branch appealed to the board for support in its efforts to secure a muchneeded reform, which would go far to remedying the overcrowding in primary

schools, a wide-spread evil which nulliaes to a great extent all efforts to improve the physical development of the boys and girls of the DominionThe board decided to support the efforts of the-'North Canterbury branch of the N.Z.E.1., as contained in the above leoouuaendtttionri.