§ Mr. ThurnhamTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what estimate he has made of the number of pupils permanently excluded from schools in each of the last five years in(a) total, (b) primary and (c) secondary schools; and what provision is made for the education of such children. [21985]
§ Mr. Robin SquireFigures collected under the national exclusions reporting system for the period April 1991 to April 1992 showed a total of 3,833 permanent exclusions; of these, 537 or 14 per cent. were in the primary sector.
The Department published the results last July of a survey it had commissioned of permanent exclusions in the school year 1993–94. This showed that there had been 10,624 such exclusions in the 101 local education 363W authorities which responded. Of these 1,230 were of primary pupils and of 8,960 secondary pupils; the remaining 434 were exclusions from special schools.
Under section 298 of the Education Act 1993, which came into force in September 1994, local education authorities have a duty to make arrangements for the provision of suitable education for permanently excluded pupils. They decide what is appropriate in each individual case. Many pupils are admitted to another school quite quickly; others receive education—for example, in a pupil referral unit or through home tuition—while they are out of school.
§ Mr. ThurnhamTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if she will list local authorities in rank order in respect of the number of pupils excluded from their schools, in each of the last three years for which figures are available. [22376]
§ Mr. SquireInformation on exclusions in each local authority area is not available centrally.