As was pointed out in Section 3 of Chapter I, the above group does not
include any increment to its own numbers by means of transfer from
other classes or schools. We find, accompanying this reduction in the
number of pupils, which shows more than 50 per cent gone by the end of
the second year in school, that there is no corresponding reduction in
the percentage of pupils failing each semester on the basis of the
number of those in school for that semester.


PERCENTAGE OF PUPILS FAILING OF THE PUPILS IN SCHOOL FOR THAT PERIOD

Semesters 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Per Cent 34.2 37.3 38.5 40.2 38.2 37.1 30.0 24.0


There is no difficulty in grasping the simple and definite significance
of these figures, for they tell us that the percentage of pupils
failing increases for the first four semesters, slightly declines for
two semesters, with a greater decline for two more semesters. These
percentages of failures are based on the number of pupils enrolled at
the beginning of the semester, and are accordingly lower than the facts
would really warrant since that number is in each case considerably
reduced by the end of the same semester.


3. THE DISTRIBUTION OF FAILURES

That the failures are widely distributed by semesters, by ages,
and for both boys and girls, is shown in Table I.