Attendance at Schools

Woodville Examiner, Volume XIII, Issue 2386, 1 July 1895, Page 4

Attendance at Schools

In his annual report Mr Hill says:— “ As showing the wide differences existing in the regularity of children at the different schools, I have compared the attendance at five schools for the December quarter over a period of five years. These schools are Napier, Gisborne, Woodville, Taradale, and Wairoa. At Napier the regularity for the whole period is represented by 80-9 per cent, of the roll number ; at Gisborne the regularity is 91*8 per cent.; at Woodville, 76 per cent.; at Taradale, 68*5 per cent.; and at Wairoa, 70 '5 per cent. These results show a sad disregard to school attendance in the cases of schools like Taradale and Wairoa, and even Woodville is not without a blame. Napier is better, but it is hardly to the credit of parents in the principal town of the district to find itself beaten by Gisborne, by more than 10 per cent, in the regularity of the school children, and this over a period of five years. But this question of regularity bears directly on the question of efficiency. Suppose, for example, that the teachers in each of the above-named schools are equally qualified, what results are to be expected from them on the assumption that the schools have been opened 400 times during the year? The Gisborne pupils will have made on the average 865'2 attendances. Napier 828'6, Woodville 804, Taradale 274, and Wairoa 282. Everybody knows what these figures mean in the case of men working 365 . days and others 274 days under similar conditions ; but the same results follow in the school workshop, for children in 274 days cannot do the work which it takes other children 865 days to do under similar working conditious. And the. comparative efficiency of the schools named shows how much depends, in successful school-keeping, upon regularity of attendance in combination with methodical instruction. If the new Act dealing with school attendance is strictly enforced throughout the district the average efficiency of the schools will be raised, and 1 looked forward with some hope to this being done during the coming year.