§ Mr. Gerald HowarthTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many children in(a) primary and (b) secondary schools were excluded in (i) 1970, (ii) 1980 and (iii) 1999; and if he will estimate how many of those came from broken homes. [119768]
§ Ms Estelle MorrisThe number of permanent exclusions from maintained schools (except special schools) submitting returns under the voluntary national exclusions reporting system which covered the period from April 1990 to April 1992 was 2,910 in year one and 3,833 in year two.
598WFigures on permanent exclusions were first collected by my Department in January 1996 in respect of the academic year 1994–95 and have since been collected annually. Data on permanently excluded pupils' family background have not been collected. The figures currently available are shown in the following table.
Information on permanent exclusions for the academic year 1994–95, and academic years 1995–96 to 1997–98, were also published in two separate statistical releases, entitled "Permanent Exclusions from schools in England" on the 30 September 1998 and 16 June 1999, respectively. Both releases are available in the Library.
Provisional figures for permanent exclusions from schools in England for the academic year 1998–99 will be published in a statistical first release in May.
Maintained primary and secondary schools: Number of permanent exclusions in each academic year Primary Secondary 1994–951 1,365 9,197 1995–96 1,068 10,344 1996–97 1,575 10,463 1997–98 1,539 10,187 1 The number of permanent exclusions was estimated to take account of a small number of schools that did not provide any information on their permanent exclusions