On This Day, 23 May 1918

Evening Despatch

Thursday 23 May 1918

WAR AND TRUANCY.

ATTENDANCE OFFICERS SAY CHILDREN ARE GETTING OUT OF HAND.

Mr. J. Stevenson, of Birmingham, has been re-elected president of the Association of Superintendents of School Attendance Officers for England and Wales.

In the address which he gave at the annual conference of the association in Leicester this week he said the new Education Bill would, if passed, prove a great advance towards the better education and the greater protection of children.

By-products of the war were seen in the vast increase in juvenile crime of a serious character, the abnormal increase in truancy, the growing indifference of many parents, the absence of paternal influence, and the anxiety of some employers to exploit child labour.

He hoped that every local education authority would be compelled to appoint a superintendent of school attendance, and said the new duties looming ahead demanded a better educated type of attendance officer.

There should be an educational test and a medical examination, and the education authority should be prepared to pay a salary such as would attract suitable men.

The amount of truancy seemed to call for a temporary revival of the truants’ industrial school, and the preferential treatment given to theatrical children ought to be withdrawn on educational grounds.