EDUCATION

ELEMENTARY EDUCATION
Though Iceland is thinly populated and schools few and far beween
 in many of the rural districts, elementary education has been
brought within the reach of even the poorest, and there is no grownup
 person, male or female, but has learned to read and write, unless
he (or she) is mentally defective. Under the Public Elementary Education
 Act of 1907 (revised in 1926) attendance at shool was made
compulsory on children between the ages of fen and fourteen, while
parents and guardians are required to provide for the instruction of
their children and wards up to that age; for, unless they are mentally
 defective, they must have acquired a certain amount of proficiency
in reading and writing before they enter school. The local education
authorities may on application be permitted to extend the compulsion
to children between seven and ten years of age; and this has already
been done in a number of districts.
All children are thus under a statutory obligation io attend school
between the ages of ten and fourteen; but they do not, as a matter
of fact, all receive their instruction at the elementary schools, for exemptions
 from aftendance may be allowed, provided the arangements
made for their teaching are recognized as being satisfactory; and,
besides, this act has never been rigorously enforced. The average attendance
 at the elementary schools is seven or eight children per
hundred of population.
For purposes of elementary education the country is divided into
school districts, the number of which is somewhat lower than that of
the parishes (municipalities), though, as a rule, a parish (municipality)
constitutes a school district.
Local elementary education is under the control of a board of education.
 consisting of five (or three) members, acting for a term of