DfES given F for failure in tackling truancy

3 Feb 05
Senior MPs gave the Department for Education and Skills a bad report this week for not reducing truancy.

04 February 2005

Senior MPs gave the Department for Education and Skills a bad report this week for not reducing truancy.

Public Accounts Committee chair Edward Leigh said that, despite £885m being spent on the problem over the past seven years, truancy levels have stayed at 0.7% of school days. The DfES target was to cut truancy by 10% by 2004.

'Everyone will be extremely disappointed that the DfES has missed by a mile its targets to reduce truancy,' he said.

Leigh added that action was needed both by the department and local authorities. 'It is of the highest importance that both do everything they can to engender a culture of high school attendance among pupils and parents, especially those with poor attitudes towards education.'

His comments followed the publication of a National Audit Office examination of school attendance levels on February 4.

The total absence rate in 2003/04 was equivalent to 450,000 of the 6.7 million pupils in English maintained schools not attending each day.

The NAO found that high rates tended to be associated with high deprivation levels.

PFfeb2005

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