Pupil Enrolment Research Articles

The paradox of Black pupil enrolment growth rates in South African schools

The paradox of Black pupil enrolment growth rates in South African schools

Geography’s Position in the Secondary School Curriculum—Pupil Enrolment Trends

(1988). Geography’s Position in the Secondary School Curriculum—Pupil Enrolment Trends. South African Geographical Journal: Vol. 70, No. 1, pp. 72-78.

A health-awareness program for elementary school teachers.

AbstractThe health‐awareness program conducted by school nurses was an in‐service program for elementary school teachers. Effects of the program on the teachers' referrals, school nurses' management of referrals, and pupils' absence patterns were studied. Four pairs of schools participated; one pair each for schools with predominantly white and Hispanic students and two pairs for mostly black students. The schools in each pair were matched by predominant enrollment of pupils' race or ethnicity and randomly assigned to the experimental or control group. Referrals for pupil health services form and Pupil's daily class attendance record were used as instruments. Results showed that (1) the program significantly increased referral rates, (2) in seven of the eight schools at least 50 percent of reported health problems remained unsolved by the end of the 1982–1983 school year, and (3) the program had little impact on absence patterns. Collaboration between teachers and nurses played a key role in the success of the health‐awareness program.

The role of schools in the spread of certain contagious diseases according to diffusion theory

This work examines empirical evidence of the mechanism by which elementary schools acted as diffusion agencies during a circumscribed epidemic of variola minor, the mild form of smallpox. The period during which those ‘diffusion agencies’ operated was well characterized in time, space, persons and number of attacks. The epidemic had originated from a single importation into a Brazilian community. Analogies between Lawrence A. Brown's conceptualization of ‘propagator-supported diffusion of innovations’ and the role of day schools in the spread of an epidemic were revealed. This role had clear analogs in the following subprocesses of the propagator-supported diffusion of innovations: ‘establishment of diffusion agencies’, ‘establishment of a system of diffusing agencies’, ‘agency supply shed’, ‘polynuclear subprocesses of a propagator-supported diffusion’. ‘establishment of the innovation itself’, ‘promotional communications employed to persuade individuals to adopt the innovation’, ‘level of information about the innovation’, ‘market price’, ‘the potential adopter's need or desire for the innovation’. However, ‘distance from agency’ was not operative, apparently because of the compulsory enrollment of pupils in the area school.

Universal Primary Education in Nigeria: Its Problems and Implications

Nigerian educational administrators find themselves engulfed by a tidal wave of swiftly swelling pupil enrollment. The rapid rate of growth poses the challenging question of how much time is left for solutions. Niger State is one example. In April 1976, 244 primary schools offered instruction to 15,796 pupils. Four months later, the state needed 931 primary schools for an additional 63,384 pupils: a growth rate of almost 400 percent. In 1978 there were 1,091 primary schools to serve 179,861 children. This amounted to a real growth of over 1000 percent in two years. This experience was repeated across a number of states. The comparison of enrollment in the first year of primary school between 1975/76 and 1976/77 school years, for example, shows a percentage increase of 557 percent in Niger, 491 percent in Kano, 442 percent in Kaduna, 263 percent in Benue. The smallest increase was 11 percent in Gongola State. Parallel to the pupil enrollment was the percentage increase of the number of primary schools between 1975/76 and 1976/77, 301.3 percent in Niger, 227.1 percent in Kano, 196.4 percent in Kaduno, 142.9 percent in Benue. The smallest increase reported was in Imo State, 1.5 percent. This recent explosion in Nigerian primary school enrollment was the direct result of the Universal Primary Education (UPE) scheme launched in September 1976. It marked the dawn of an educational revolution with pervasive social and economic implications (Bray, 1981). The political expectations were that universal free primary education would enable the nation to overcome the hurdles caused by unbalanced educational and economic development which resulted in southern dominance and educational imbalances of urban opportunities over the rural, and the preponderance of male over female enrollment in schools.

Chapter 1: The Development of The Soviet System of Vocational And Technical Education

Abstract The Twenty-fifth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) [in 1976] drew up an ambitious program for the development of the national economy during the Tenth Five-Year Plan (1976-80). Among other things, it covers the field of vocational and technical education. The "Basic Guidelines for the Development of the USSR National Economy for 1976-80" declare: "Young people should be trained as highly qualified workers for all branches of the national economy, primarily in vocational-technical educational institutions —where they can acquire both a specialized technical education and a general secondary education simultaneously — as well as in technical schools. The enrollment of pupils in secondary vocational-technical and [post-secondary] technical schools shall be more than doubled. The system of vocational and technical education must prepare approximately 11 million skilled workers. The training of workers with a secondary education at vocational-technical schools shall increase no less than 2.5 times." (1)

Research on Retention of Teachers

Declining enrollments increasing public demands for evidence of educational effectiveness are forcing educators to develop defensible procedures for the identification of teacher competence. Research on the application of these procedures for the purposes of granting tenure or implementing a reduction in force is the subject of this review. The urgency of developing a solution is illustrated by projections from the U.S. Office of Education which indicates a decline of pupil enrollment in grades K-12 of five million for the period of 1972 to 1982 (National Center for Education Statistics, 1977). Assuming an average classroom of 30 pupils per teacher this would suggest a net decline of approximately 160,000 in the teaching force during the decade. What percentage of the decline can be accommodated by normal attrition is problematic. A safe speculation is that an increasing number of districts will find it necessary to institute reduction-in-force procedures if they are to maintain financial responsibility. As the pupil enrollment in the districts declines, the cost of educating a pupil is increasing. While the cost increase can be attributed to a variety of causes, certainly one factor is the personnel cost associated with the increasing seniority related longevity salary increments of most school districts. The magnitude of the increase is suggested by Boulding who indicated that in 1971 the schooling industry represented six to seven percent of the American economy, having risen from less than three percent in the last 30 years; and there are good reasons to suppose it [the cost of schooling] will continue to grow at least until the end of the century (1972, p. 129). The public reaction to this combination of circumstances is summarized in the Toronto Star.

Prevalence of Tuberculin Sensitivity in the Panama Canal Zone

1. The tuberculin tests were completed on 87.7 per cent of the total pupil enrollment in the U. S. schools, and on 84.3 per cent of the total enrollment in the Latin-American schools on the Canal Zone. 2. The prevalence of infection among the U. S. students was lower and the data suggest the possible minimal risk of infection through family and community infection. 3. The prevalence of infection among the Latin-American students was higher than the U. S. students, but much lower than the same age groups in the terminal cities of Panama and Colon, demonstrating the high community risk of infection through close family and community contacts in these cities.

German Language Study in Soviet Ten-Year Schools

In the Soviet ten-year school system (desiatiletka), which corresponds to the twelve-year program of pre-university instruction in the United States, almost eight million youngsters are now studying German. This figure exceeds the combined enrollment of Soviet pupils in the next two most popular languages (English and French)', and, despite the progress of German teaching in our elementary and secondary schools2, amounts to roughly one hundred and fifty times the number of Americans taking German at the pre-university level. During a recent trip to the Soviet Union I visited ten-year school language classes, and tried to find out why so many young Russians are studying German, in particular. Soviet language teachers look forward to the day when they will have classes of not more than twenty pupils, but the classes which I visited averaged forty. I was also told that language teachers are given latitude in their choice of classroom methods. By our standards, however, this is hardly true. The Soviet students of Ger-

Inter-Americanism and Spanish American Poetry

T HE teacher best fitted to train for iinternational attitudes is the one who best knows the literature and history of both his own and foreign countries; the more comprehensive and the deeper the knowledge the more valuable the instruction, other requisites being equally met. As evidence that this opinion is being adopted more and more widely in school-systems, we watch the constantly growing pressure to include in every modern foreign language course a side course, one might call it, in international relations. Out of this situation have arisen many problems in practical pedagogy, which are costing every conscientious foreign language teacher countless hours of extra planning. The mass of the material to be learned, as well as the pressure to give consideration to it, are greater in Spanish than in French, German, or Italian. There is no teacher but believes in the primary common sense of arousing pupils' interest in the people whose language they are studying. There is none but sees the immediate necessity of using every possible opportunity to prepare the voter of the future to follow intelligently, perhaps even to become a leader in directing, the political and economic negotiations that will hold and strengthen international, especially Inter-American, amicable relations and general good feeling. However, the allotment of class-hours has the most definite of limitations. The task the teacher faces, then, is so to combine the teaching of area, in English, with linguistic training, in Spanish, that the former will be a help, and not a deterrent, to the latter. At the college level, where students can study history by using the untranslated texts of national historians, and where rapid reading makes possible an acquaintance with the best novels, short stories, essays, and other interpretations of the life of the people, there is little or no necessity to resort to English for classroom discussion. But in the high school, not even the American-made Spanish textbooks in history, travel, and customs can be used to advantage below the third unit of language study, a point to which only a pitiably small minority persevere. The high school that would interest the total enrollment of Spanish pupils in the cultural values of Latin American civilization must place this study in the first and second units, and the teacher, thus being obliged to present

Enrollment of Blind Pupils in the United States

Enrollment of Blind Pupils in the United States

Reorganizing Extra-Curriculum Activities: A High-School Program

In spite of emphasis on pupil activities during recent years, relatively meager progress has been made in developing comprehensive programs in this significant area of secondary education. Programs of activities in high schools are generally characterized by marked variation in such aspects as proportion of numbers of activities to pupil enrolment, regulation of pupil participation, guidance of pupils in selecting activities, and degree of initiative assumed by sponsors.' Conditions of this nature have been ascribed to various factors, such as neglect of supervision on the part of principals or lack of teacher interest, but the chief cause has been failure to utilize basic educational principles in planning and developing programs of pupil activities.

The Social and Educational Status of the Pupils in a Residential Suburban Community

For the purpose of discovering some of the social and educational influences which affect pupil enrolment, participation in activities, and scholarship in the high school, the writer was engaged for three years in a study of the school population of a residential suburban community, the Lyons Township High School district, with buildings located in La Grange, Illinois. It is the object of this article to present some of the important findings of the investigation. The study is based on data obtained from blanks filled out by pupils in the high school under the direction of specially trained teachers, from blanks filled out by parents of other persons in the high-school district between the ages of seven and twenty-one years, and from records on file in the office of the high school. The returns are from 54.3 per cent of all persons in the high-school district between the ages of seven and twenty-one years. All pupils in regular attendance at the high school from September, 1923, to June, 1925, are included. The area which contains 98.6 per cent of the population of the Lyons Township High School district is predominantly a section of homes. The district has no large industries which require large numbers of poorly paid laborers. A large percentage of the householders are Chicago business and professional men who desire to rear their families away from the noise, dirt, and vicious environment of the large city. There are few apartment buildings, and the data show that 85 per cent of the parents of the pupils in the high school own their own homes. The data were grouped according to the occupations of the fathers of the individuals studied, the I.Q.'s of the pupils in the high school, and the scholastic success of the pupils in the high school in terms of teachers' marks.

SCHOOL CHILDREN'S EYES—A PLEA FOR THE EXAMINATION OF EVERY CHILD'S EYES, WHEN COMMENCING TO ATTEND SCHOOL.Read in the Section on Ophthalmology, at the Forty-fifth Annual Meeting of the American Medical Association, held "at San Francisco, June 5-8, 1894.

Looking over the annual report of the public schools of the city of San Francisco for the year 1893, I find that there was an average daily attendance of 31,002 pupils between the ages of 5 and 17. Of this number 69 and sixty-three-hundredths percent. were in the primary grades. This includes all children between 5 and 10 years of age. Twenty-six and six-hundredths per cent. were pupils in the grammar grades, while but 4 and thirty-one-hundredths per cent. were high school pupils. These pupils between say, the ages of 10 and 17 were divided between the grammar grade and the high school. I wish to emphasize the point that, though this does not state the total enrollment of pupils, it does very correctly give the daily attendance throughout the year. An analysis of these figures will give us some very important results. In the first place, you will observe