Suspensions from school steadily falling, says report

School suspension figures for last year are slightly down on 2003 and the trend shows a steady reduction, says the Government.

There were 4774 suspensions last year, compared with 4885 in 2003.

Associate Education Minister David Benson-Pope said:

"The number and rate of suspension cases has steadily reduced since 2000, and appears to involve a very small fraction of school students - close to half of 1 per cent.

He said suspensions were concentrated in a small number of schools, and 75 per cent of schools had no suspension cases last year. Less than 3 per cent of schools were responsible for 43 per cent of suspensions.

Most students returned to school after being suspended and 61 per cent went back to the same school.

Mr Benson-Pope said targeted suspension reduction initiatives in 86 schools were working to cut the numbers.

Stand-downs from schools in 2004 remained at the same rate as in 2003. Last year there were about 20,447 stand-downs - less than 2.8 per cent of the national school population.

Stand-downs occur when a student is formally removed from school for a specified time, but no more than 10 days in a school year.

A suspended student is removed from a school and the board decides what will happen after that.

- NZPA