Industry News
Risk of persistent truancy revealed
Posted on 6th May 2008
Hundreds of thousands of pupils across England and Wales are at risk of becoming "persistent truants" it has been revealed.
The result is that one in 20 children, or 348,000, may fall into the category, as the number of unauthorised absences in schools rose.
There have been numerous crackdowns on the problem of truancy, including threatening to take parents to court if they do not ensure their children go to school.
However the number of 'skiving' pupils continues to rise marginally year-on-year.
Acting secretary of the National Union of Teachers Christine Blower said: "Schools do their best to deal with persistent truancy but they cannot, on their own, address deep-rooted social problems which lead to truancy."
She added that the threat of legal sanctions to parents "cannot represent a coherent strategy" for the problem.
Giving schools the freedom to make the curriculum more flexible would help to engage "school refusers", she said.