THE number of children attending special schools for young offenders has fallen, according to the Department of Education's, latest statistical report. Staffing levels have also declined.
Last year there were 170 young offenders in special schools - all but 15 of them boys compared to 205 in 1994. The number of young offenders aged 11 and under fell from 15 to one.
A Department spokesman said the numbers were merely "snapshots" of the population of young offenders on a particular day. The special schools had places for about 200 young offenders and the numbers attending could change from month to month.
The 120 page report provides detailed information on a variety of education statistics. A compilation of figures covering the past decade shows large increases in spending on education - the total budget has doubled from about £1 billion in 1984/85 to more than £2 billion in 1994/95.
Almost 3,700 children were taught in classes with 40 or more pupils, in spite of promises from the Department that no class would be larger than 39. However, the number of children in this category had fallen from 6,000 the previous year.
More than one primary school in five had fewer than 50 pupils, the figures show. Smaller schools tended to have smaller classes - the average class size varied from 18 for schools with under 50 pupils to 31.6 in schools with more than 500 pupils.
For the first time in several decades, the number of primary school pupils dipped below 500,000. The number of pupils at second level is still increasing, although the rate of increase is slowing down. In 1994/95, there were 371,000 at this level, up from 329,000 in 1984/85. Most growth is now concentrated at third level, where numbers are up from 50,000 to 90,000.
