THE number of children playing truant has risen by more than a third to 1.4 million since Labour took office, according to official figures published yesterday.

The Department for Education and Skills revealed that more than 55,000 pupils skipped class every day in the past school year; a rise of 4,500 since 2003-04 and the biggest jump since the figures were first recorded in 1994.

In spite of the Government spending £1 billion on initiatives tackling absenteeism since 1997, the annual number of pupils playing truant from school has soared by 43 per cent. Jacqui Smith, the Schools Minister, said that school attendance was higher than ever, with fewer children going sick or taking term-time holidays, but said that she was disappointed that a “stubborn minority” of teenagers were skipping school. “Schools are treating absenteeism more rigorously, challenging questionable reasons for absence and cracking down on unnecessary time out of school,” she said.

But she added: “It is disappointing that a stubborn minority of pupils, estimated at 8,000 in just 4 per cent of secondary schools, remain determined to jeopardise their education and their futures.”

Officials at the Department for Education and Skills claim that these serial truants, who miss up to five weeks of class at a time, account for a fifth of all truancy figures. Ms Smith declared that 146 schools would now be forced to identify their most persistent truants and place the parents on a “fast track to attendance” scheme.

The parents would be assigned a truancy officer and receive support from social and youth services to help to tackle issues such as drugs, parenting skills or mental health problems. If there were no serious improvements within three months, the parents would face a court appearance, which normally results in a £2,500 fine or three months in prison.

Since September last year, more than 18,000 parents have been placed on such schemes. The Government’s new target comes after an initiative with the travel industry to allow parents discounts for making early holiday bookings, to cut term-time holidays.

Of the 1,381,458 truants, almost two thirds, or 793,628, are teenagers. As in previous years, the highest number of truants are in the North East and West, Yorkshire and Humberside, followed by London.

While the percentage of truants from private schools was just 0.13 per cent, in city academies the average pupil absence was estimated to be 2.84 per cent, more than double that of state secondary schools, at 1.25 per cent. At the City Academy Bristol, Ray Priest, the principal, has presided over an 11 percentage point drop in truants from 15 to 4 per cent in two years.

He credits a liberal interpretation of the curriculum, a positive school atmosphere and an “attendance team” of three, which works with both the families and his 1,300 pupils.

“They are the real key,” he said, “because people need to be in the school and building relations with families and children.”

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