Question

In my drop down box, it is a required field but even if something has been selected the validation message appears,

 if(empty($data['department']) || strlen($data['department']) )
    {
    $err[] = "ERROR - Please enter the department you are applying for.";
    }

which is pulled from

$insert = "INSERT into users
`department`,  VALUES ( '$data[department] )";

HTML:

<td>Department<span class="required">*</span> </td>
        <td><select name="department"  id="department">

            <option value="" selected></option>

            <option <? if($department == '1') { ?> selected <? } ?>   
 value="1">1</option>

            <option <? if($department== '2') { ?> selected <? } ?> value="2">2   
  </option>

            <option <? if($department == '3') { ?> selected <? } ?> 
 value="3">3</option>


            </select>

Answer 1

Try this:

if (empty($data['department']))
{
    $err[] = "ERROR - Please enter the department you are applying for.";
}

You don’t need to check for strlen if the variable is empty