Absenteeism and the State of Health of Pupils Attending a Basic Nine-Year School with All-Day Care in the Years 1960 to 1970

The author deals with the question of absenteeism and some indices of the state of health of Basic Nine-Year School pupils, primarily those attending a basic Nine- -Year School with all-day care. His starting point is, on the one hand, the record of the number of teaching periods pupils were absent from, and on the other hand, his own long-term observation of the state of health of a sample of pupils in the period from 1960/61 to 1969/70. He compares these data with those obtained in his own previous studies of the question of pupils’ absenteeism from school. This analysis has resulted in a conclusion stating that on a broader scale the school and out-of-school conditions of pupils have changed to such an extent that the relative absences in the first age-group (6 to 11) get balanced earlier as compared with those in the second age-group (11 to 15) and this goes not only for ordinary basic Nine-Year Schools, but also for those with all-day care. It is apparent that the phenomenon under observation has, for quite a long time, been showing as a new circumstance which must be taken account of not only by those concerned with health, but also by educationists. These theoretical data require practical measures to be taken for the benefit of the pupils attending either type of the Basic Nine-Year School.