§ Mrs. Renée Shortasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many children in England and Wales have left secondary school each year during the last 10 years unable to read and write; and what percentage of each year's leavers they represent.
§ Miss Margaret JacksonThis information is not collected centrally, nor is there any agreed definition of the terms "unable to read and write". A survey into reading standards conducted by the National Foundation for Educational Research in 1971, however, used scores obtained in a reading test to measure "literacy". On that basis, in 1971, a negligible proportion of 15-year-old pupils in maintained secondary schools, excluding special schools, was "illiterate", and 3 per cent. "semi-literate".
§ Mrs. Renée Shortasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is the average class size in infants and junior schools, respectively; which LEA's have classes that exceed these figures; and how many children in each type of school are being taught in classes larger than the average.
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§ Miss Margaret JacksonProvisional figures for the average size of a registered class in January 1976 were:
Infant schools … 28.5 Junior with infant schools … 28.6 Junior without infants … 30.6 Information to answer the second part of the Question could not be obtained without disproportionate cost. However, it is estimated that for each type of school somewhere in the region of 60 per cent. of all children are likely to have been in classes larger than the average. It is likely that every LEA will have at least one registered primary class larger than the national average.