Mr. Jim Callaghanasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many pupils were expelled from secondary schools in the Greater Manchester county districts in each of the last five years.
§ Mr. OakesThe exclusion of individual pupils from secondary schools is a matter for the governing bodies of schools and for local education authorities. Statistics on the number of pupils excluded in this way are not collected by my Department. Such information as is available, however, indicates that over the country as a whole the number of pupils excluded from schools is small. In most cases exclusions are of short duration, following particularly serious incidents, and allow consideration to be given, usually in consultation with parents, to the best means of providing for the pupils' continued education.