E.—l

Pupils in Public Schools. The working average —which has been since 1893 the basis upon which the capitation grants are paid to Education Boards—shows for the year 1899 a further falling-off from the number previously reached. For the year 1897 the working average was 112,328; in 1898 it was 111,636 ; while last year it reached only 110,316, or 1,320 less than the year before. In the calculation of the working average for a given school are omitted all attendances on those half-days on which less than half the pupils on the roll are present; on the other hand, the strict average for any school is found by including all the half-days on which the school is open: the strict average for the twelve months ended the 31st December, 1899, was 108,405, or 1,851 less than for the previous year.

TABLE A. —School Attendance and Yearly Increase from 1877 to 1899.

The average of the weekly roll-numbers throughout the year was, however, only 242 less than for the year 1898, the figures being 133,540 for 1899 as against 133,782 for 1898.* Expressing the strict average attendance for the year as a percentage of the average weekly roll-numbers, we get 81 - 2 per cent, as representing the regularity of attendance during the year. This is lower than the corresponding figures for any year since 1894. In 1897 the average attendance reached 82 - 9 per cent, of the roll, and in 1898, when there was a considerable amount of sickness among children, 82-4 per cent. Table A shows the attendance for the twenty-two years that have elapsed since the passing of the Education Act. It is not easy to assign with any degree of certainty the true causes of the great falling-off in average attendance as compared with the slight decrease in the roll-numbers. There does not appear to have been any unusual amount of sickness among children, or any general prevalence of bad weather during the year. Whatever may have been the cause, the increase in the amount of irregular attendance seems to call for attention on the part of all concerned; there is little doubt that to a certain extent it is preventable.

* The returns furnished to the Registrar-General appear to show that the number on the rolls of private schools, including Roman Catholio schools, increased during 1899 by 513 pupils; the number in public secondary schools inoreased by seventeen. Taking public primary and secondary schools, and private schools of all kinds, we have therefore a net increase of 288 on the rolls. Now, allowing for deaths of children under five, the number of births in the colony during 1893 and 1894 would make us expect an increased roll-number in 1899 of about three hundred children. The agreement between these figures is so close as to lead us to the conclusion that there is little or no increase in the number of children whose names do not appear on any school roll. The leakage in the yearly average attendance is due, in short, not to the rolls, but to the irregular attendance,

ii

Schi >ol Attendance, Yearly Ini srease on Year. 43 PI K A 00 10 CO irj a H ■ ° s h n w co a so.? S ai* iS'sct; Ka° o "3 A Average A1 itendance. rd-SO 1 . a O ., rl co y. co -z Of cog? <* C3 -wpi cd O '$ tai» googg k a oo CO CO ■Pffl •a a H .- a m k° a ai* •5 K a o o % A Average Attendance. Fourth Quarter. Whole Year. Fourth Quarter. Whole Year. 1877 1878 1879 1880 1881 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 1896 1897 1898 1899 50,849 59,707 68,124 74,359 76,309 79,416 84,883 90,670 95,377 99,206 103,534 104,919 108,158 110,665 112,279 114,305 116,819 119,900 122,425 123,533 123,892 123,207 55,688 65,040 75,566 82,401 83,560 87,179 92,476 97,238 102,407 106,328 110,919 112,685 115,456 117,912 119,523 122,620 124,686 127,300 129,856 131,037 132,197 131,621 131,315 49,435 57,301 62,946 63,009 66,426 70,077 74,650 80,183 83,361 87,386 90,849 94,308 96,670 96,264 100,917 99,872 106,151 107,222 109,253 110,523 107,904 107,066 45,521 53,067 60,625 61,822 63,709 67,373 72,657 78,327 80,737 85,637 90,108 93,374 94,632 97,058 99,070 98,615 103,490 106,622 108,976 110,993 110,256 108,405 73-8 74-6 74-2 73-6 74-0 75-1 76-6 76-1 77-0 79-3 80-3 79-9 80-3 80-6 78-5 80-6 81-4 82-1 82-9 82-4 81-2 8,858 8,417 6,235 1,950 3,107 5,467 5,787 4,707 3,829 4,328 1,385 3,239 2,507 1,614 2,026 2,514 3,081 2,525 1,108 359 [-685] 9,352 10,526 6,835 1,159 3,619 5,297 4,762 5,169 3,921 4,591 1,766 2,771 2,456 1,611 3,097 2,066 2,614 2,556 1,181 1,160 [-576] [-306] 7,866 5,645 63 3,417 3,651 4,573 5,533 3,178 4,025 3,463 3,459 2,362 [-406] 4,653 [-1,045] 6,279 1,071 2,031 1,270 [-2,619] [-838] 7,546 7,558 1,197 1,887 3,664 5,284 5,670 2,410 4,900 4,471 3,266 1,258 2,426 2,012 [-455] 4,875 3,132 2,354 2,017 [-737] [-1,851]