rents to send their children of primary school age to school are already contained in Part VII of the Education Ordinance (Chapter 279). Under section 74 of the Ordinance the Director of Education is empowered to serve an attenance order upon the parent of a child between the ages of 6 and 11 (inclusive) who is withholding him from attending primary school without reasonable excuse. As it is considered desirable to ensure that all children in the 12-14 year old age group should make use of the junior secondary places that will be provided, it is proposed to extend these powers to cover children in the junior secondary age range once sufficient subsidised places are available for them.
5
The first group of children who will have entered secondary school under the new allocation arrangements will enter Form II in September 1979 and Form III in September 1980. It is proposed to extend the Director of Education's powers by two stages, with effect from September 1979 to cover children who have not yet reached their 14th birthday, and with effect from September 1980 to cover children below their 15th birthday who have not yet completed Form III. The legislation would not require the small number of children completing Form III before their 15th birthday to stay on at school; and there would be some who could leave school at 15 without completing From III. It would be sufficient for a child to attend any registered primary or secondary school, not necessarily a school participating in the scheme for allocating primary school leavers to secondary schools.
6
The enforcement of primary school attendance is undertaken when cases come to the notice of the Education Department's Inspectors, the Family Services Officers of the Social Welfare Department and Inspectors of the Labour Department. Non-attendance at school by children of primary school age does not appear to be a serious problem; some 800 cases were investigated in the 1976/77 academic year, but most were satisfactorily settled. In only two cases since the Director of Education's statutory powers were introduced in 1971 has it been found necessary for a formal attendance order to be served.
7
Enforcement of attendance at junior secondary school level is bound to be a more serious problem than at primary school level, because the temptation of employment is greater for children of this age group. The Education Department will, however, maintain central records of those secondary school students who have passed through the new secondary school allocation arrangements to be introduced in 1978, although this will not be a complete record of all children in the age group. More- over, the machinery for checking on school attendance will be strengthened by the appointment of Student Guidance Officers, and the development of social welfare services should help to reduce the circumstances where parents encounter difficulty in sending their children to school. The pro- gramme for personal social work amongst youth considered by Honourable Members on 23rd August 1977 with XCC(77)63 will also be relevant.
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