TRUANCY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIV, Issue 49, 26 August 1907, Page 3

TRUANCY.

" Truancy is not so bad as it used to bo," said Air. Dineen, Truant Inspector, to a Post reporter. " Ifor one thing, parents are becoming every day more and more alive to the necessity oi letting their children have as much schooling as possible, and then the labour of the children is icss required, as the country grows more prosperous and families generally bcltsr to do than formerly." During the last month Mr. Dineen has laid twenty-four informations for breaches of tho regulations for school attondance. Some -of the cases he described as very bad. " Here is an example of a boy, ten years old, who has made 62 out of a possible 500 attendances. He has passed no standard. His guardian moves about from one place to another, so that ho is very hard to catch. The magistrate fined him 12s v/ith £1 Is costs." Other cases were given of *i girl 13 years old who had only passed Standard I. ; of another, almost thirteen, who had not passed Standard III. ; and a third, aged eleven and a half, who was still in Standard 11. ' Asked for the cause ot tho failure- to attend school, tho Truant Officer explained that in one particular case a family living close to Wellington wure milking thirty cows, and, as thoy employed no outside labour, the children had to suffer in consequence. The chilcirou of another family had not only to milk tho cows, but* aho to go the rounds distributing to the consumers. Hence they were frequently late and that often induced truancy. The magistrals had spoken very strongly in the case of a boy of thirteen and a half years, pointing out that he would soon be exempt from attending school on the score of age, and had already received incalculable injury by missing hi 3 education, hi hard cas>c£> of j,ov erty, Mr. Dineen had appealed to tho Wellington Ladies' Christian Association, and also to the Benevolent Trustees, and assistance had always been forthcoming. With regard to the allegation that parents had been treated too hardly by the Truant Officers, Mr. Dineert btated that two notices, and often three, wore sent to .the offending persons before proceedings were taken. Letters were written to people in the cpuntry requesting them to Bond their children to school, so that no complairt 1 could bb made on that score.