As many as 57 Moldovan children did not attend school on December 31, 2011, as against 173 on September 16 last year. The school attendance rate is now 99.9%, Info-Prim Neo reports. In a communiqué, the Ministry of Education says that seven of the children out of school are from Chisinau. 17 of the 57 children who do not go to school are first-fourth graders, while 40 are fifth-ninth graders. Among the causes why children of school age do not attend school are the difficult financial situation, vagrancy and the leaving abroad. In order to prevent the children from abandoning the school, joint commissions consisting of employees of education divisions and institutions and police commissariats visit the students and parents at home and discuss with them. So as to improve the basic education, all the first-fourth graders and the fifth-ninth graders from socially disadvantaged families are provided with meals and textbooks gratis. There were opened 37 community centers in villages that did nor have kindergartens. A number of 89 children abandoned school at the end of the first semester. Nine of them were from the first-fourth grades, while 80 from the fifth-ninth grades.