E.—2.

Appendix C

Catholic Schools.

Private Schools.

These results very nearly correspond with the quarterly returns sent in by teachers. The average number of pupils attending the Board schools for the year was 10,829, whilst on examination-day the roll showed 11,143 as attending. The average attendance for the year was 9,724. This gives an increase of 406 children for the year, compared with 1911. The school regularity for the year was 89-7 per cent, of the roll. This is the highest regularity shown for the whole district since 1878 for which records are available. Even this high percentage would have been increased but for various forms of sickness that continued to appear among many children in quite a number of districts. It is always encouraging when visiting schools to find a full attendance of pupils, and teachers and Committees have done a good deal to foster regularity at school. The honours-board is a strong incentive, hut gold and silver medals and books are given without stint by many of the School Committees as an encouragement to the children. A word of praise is also due to the school-attendance officer, who has carried out his duties with considerable tact and success. Truancy and irregularity are surely disappearing from the schools. Parents are beginning to realize and appreciate the value of the public school, and many instances are brought under one's notice of the long distances travelled daily by some of the children. A reference to the table given above will show that there has been an increase of pupils in each of the standard classes, with one exception—viz., Standard VI. The strength of a school is to be measured by the proportion of pupils that pass through the highest class compared with the number in the lowest. The Fifth and Sixth Standard pupils are supposed to represent children so trained as to be ready to leave school to enter on life's work. Of the 646 pupils who completed the Standard VI course in 1911, only 122, or 18-8 per cent., are shown to have proceeded to Standard VII last year. Some pupils may have entered at the secondary or technical schools, but the number that did so was probably balanced by those pupils who failed for promotion, and remained another year at school. In 1911, Standard Vpupils numbered 836. As Standard VI pupils they dwindled to 624, or to 74-6 per cent, of the total. So also the 1,114 pupils in Standard IV in 1911 dwindled last year to 953 as Standard V pupils. Thus the facts stated above lead to the inference that 81*2 per cent, of Standard VI pupils left school following the December examinations, that 25*4 per cent, of Standard V children left school without completing their Sixth Standard course, and that 14-5 per cent, of Standard IV children left school without finishing their Fifth Standard course. Such results cannot be deemed satisfactory. This early leaving is not special to Hawke's Bay, for in the Minister's report on education the Inspector-General of Schools calls attention to the serious leakage in the upper classes throughout the schools of the Dominion. In England and Scotland pupils are not permitted to leave school, nor can they be employed, without an official certificate issued by a Board of Education or education authority. For the sake of the children it would be well if similar conditions were operative in this country. Nominally, children are required to remain at school until they have passed a standard not lower than the fifth. The facts available

XXII

1912. Roll. Present. Average Age. 1911 Roll. Standard VII VI .. V .. IV .. Ill II .. 1 .. 4 70 85 103 98 113 108 4 65 81 95 92 108 105 14-7 14-7 13-3 12-8 11-8 101 9-0 2 54 100 101 124 98 99 Totals 'reparatory 581 350 • 550 321 7-1 578 334 Grand totals 932 932 871 871 10 yrs. 912

1912. itandard VII VI .. V .. IV .. Ill II .. I .. Roll. .. : 7 .. ; 2 4 5 8 8 Present. 7 2 4 5 8 8 Average Age. J^J 14-0 7 14-9 9 12-8 4 12-6 6 9-11 4 7-8 14 Totals 'reparatory 34 16 34 16 44 6-4 20 6-4 44 20 Grand totals i ..I 50 50 9yrs. 7mns. 64