Class Sizes (Hansard, 1 April 1993)

§ Mr. David Hunt

[pursuant to his reply, 17 February 1993, c. 273]: The methodology applied to the 1990–91 data was inconsistent with other years. The figures for primary schools has now been revised as shown in the table. The average class size in primary and secondary schools and further and higher education courses in Wales since 1979 is shown in the following table. Figures are not available for further and higher education courses prior to 1982–83 and for secondary schools prior to 1986–87. Information on the average class size of infant schools and sixth form colleges is not collected separately. Information for the colleges of the university of Wales is not available.

	Primary	Secondary¹	Further education²	Higher education²
1979–80	24.3	n/a	n/a	n/a
1980–81	23.9	n/a	n/a	n/a
1981–82	24.1	n/a	n/a	n/a
1982–83	23.9	n/a	13.5	12.5
1983–84	23.7	n/a	13.5	13.2
1984–85	24.1	n/a	14.0	13.7
1985–86	24.3	n/a	13.3	13.4
1986–87	24.4	19.4	13.2	14.2
1987–88	24.5	19.1	13.5	14.1
1988–89	24.8	19.0	³14.0	³13.5
1989–90	24.8	18.9	14.0	13.9
1990–91	25.2	19.2	14.3	15.7
1991–92	25.4	21.5	n/a	n/a
¹ Prior to 1986–87 information on the size of classes in secondary schools was collected on a different basis. These data, relating to the numbers of classes by size, are given in the Secondary Education section of "Statistics of Education in Wales: Schools", copies of which are available in the Library of the House.
² Average class sizes for Wales are calculated on a further education or higher education basis and the figures do include a small number of further education courses run at higher education establishments and higher education courses at further education establishments.
³ Changes in methodology introduced in 1988–89 may affect comparisons of indicators between 1987–88 and 1988–89.