=(2) Co-education=

At the hearing of the immorality charges in the Court at Lower Hutt the prosecuting officer attributed the delinquency, in part, to the association of boys and girls in co-educational schools.  This directed the attention of the Committee to the effect on morality of the propinquity of the sexes in schools.

There seemed to be no disagreement on the question of educating boys and girls of primary-school age together.  The desirability of co-education at the post-primary school level, however, was frequently disputed.  Many opinions were heard, for and against.

The Committee was not concerned with the relative values of the different types of school, except in so far as they had an effect on juvenile delinquency.

Statements were made that co-educational schools did, in fact, increase the chances of immorality, but although the Committee investigated these charges it could not find that acts of immorality among pupils did in fact arise from their association at school.

There was evidence that one girl had incited seven boys to sexual misbehaviour on the way home from a co-educational school.  Thorough investigation proved to the Committee that the group came from the same neighbourhood and had become known to one another from their home and street association.  Acts of indecency had occurred long before they went to the post-primary school.

Senior pupils of an intermediate school were concerned in depravity, both heterosexual and homosexual.  The trouble probably spread through the acquaintanceships made at school, but in all cases the history of the instigators, in intelligence and environment, showed either that they were already concerned in immoral acts outside the school or that they had home circumstances conducive to delinquency.

In many of the cases that were brought to the notice of the Committee the name of the school was associated with the offender, even although the offences did not occur within the school or arise from it.  This linking of the school with the offender is unfortunate, as it is unsettling to the other pupils of the school and disturbing to the parents of the district.

=(3) School Leaving Age=

The school leaving age is now 15, but there are obviously some pupils, in the upper forms of primary schools and the lower in post-primary, who, either through lack of ability or lack of interest, are not only [not][3] deriving “appreciable benefit” from their further education, but are indeed unsettling and sometimes dangerous to other children.

The School Age Regulations (1943/202) permit of exemption from attendance at school in cases where the Senior Inspector of Schools in any district certifies that a child of 14 who has completed the work of Form II is not likely to derive any appreciable benefit from the facilities available at a convenient school or the Correspondence School.