Per Cent 14.1 33.9 46.4 64.9 72.9 85.2 91.9 97.6 99.1

  Cumulative percentages of non-failing non-graduates as they are
  lost by semesters

  Lost by end
  of semester 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

  Per Cent 61.1 78.0 85.9 92.1 94.5 98.4 99.5 .. ..

Briefly stated, the above percentages assert that more than three fourths of those who neither fail nor graduate have left school by the end of the first year, while only 33.9 per cent of those non-graduates who fail have left so early.  More than 50 per cent of the failing non-graduates continue in school to near the end of the second year.  By that time about 90 per cent of the non-failing non-graduates have been lost from school.  By a combination of the above groups we get the percentages of all non-graduates lost by successive semesters.

  Cumulative percentages of all non-graduates lost by successive semesters

  Lost by end
  of semester 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

  Per Cent 33.7 53.4 62.6 76.2 81.9 90.7 94.0 98.6

These percentages of non-graduates indicate that more than 50 per cent of those who do not graduate are gone by the end of the first year, but that there are a few who continue beyond four years without graduating.

2.  The later distribution of pupils by semesters

Consideration is here given to the number of the total entrants remaining in school for each successive semester, and then to the accompanying percentages of failure for each group.  The following figures show the rapid decline in numbers.

  The persistence of pupils in school, by semesters

  End of semester 1 2 3 4 5 6 Graduate

  6,141 (Total) 4,723 3,893 3,508 2,935 2,697 2,234 1,936

  Percentages 76.9 63.4 57.1 47.8 43.9 36.4 31.5

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