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xviii.
The total grant earned, therefore, daring the year was earned by 4796 children,
not 5664, and it amounted to £1 18s. 4d. per child. To avoid overstating the
case I will assume the annual earning of each child who attended to have been
£1 17s. 6d. Now, if the children who were absent had each earned the same
sum by attending, the total grant would have been increased by at least £1600
in the year. This would have meant an attendance of 100 per cent. which
it would be absurd to expect or hope for, but the point is, would a system
of medical inspection have any effect in reducing the number of children absent
from School? I venture to think that it would, though actual experience only
can prove the correctness or otherwise of this opinion.
I have no means of examining the various causes responsible for the
absence of the 868 children who did not attend, but I can safely conclude that
illness was the chief one given by the parents. The health of the child was
either the cause or the excuse for its non-attendance, and I am afraid that in
many instances the child was really quite well enough to go to School. I
think that probably at least 10 per cent. of the children who were nominally
excused attendance were in fact quite well, and should have been at School.
This seems an unfair statement, but I believe it is not exaggerated. I have
more than once found on personal inquiry that many children whose parents
had sent word to the school that they were ill and could not attend, were
quite well and kept at home to assist in domestic work or for some other
reason.
I am aware that at the present time the parent is supposed to send in
a medical certificate in case of absence from illness, and that the Education
Committee has paid over £20 in one year for such certificates. But this system
works a good deal better in theory than in practice. Usually, when the child has
only been absent for a day or two, no certificate is demanded. In many
other cases the attendance officer leaves the certificate with the parent, and
she takes it to a doctor after the child has recovered and asks him to sign
it. If the doctor does so, not having seen the child during the supposed
illness, he can only do it on the statement of the parent, and the certificate
can have but little value. This is especially true in regard to Measles,
probably the commonest reason given for absence.
I think that if the parents knew that the official Medical Officer of the
education authority might come and satisfy himself that the child was really