Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Truancy highest since 1994


Truancy rates in
England's secondary schools rose by more than 10% last year, according to government figures.

Despite £900m spent on anti-truancy initiatives, the annual figures show the highest truancy rates since 1994.

If truancy rates are this high why on earth would you want to go and make people stay on at school until they are 18?

I have a way to reduce truancy and it will actually cost less money than it does now. Why not make child benefit linked to school attendance? If you miss one day a week of school then you get 20% of your child benefit stopped for that week. Having this would actually get parents to make sure their children go to school because they would lose money if they didn’t. Also if they are unemployed they have no reason to not get their children to school so dock their unemployment benefit too.

Hat tip: Ellee Seymour

1 comment:

alanorei said...

Excellent set of posts here YDKM.

Truancy is understood when you read Frank Chalk's book. On housing estates where family stability has broken down, education is almost a non-starter for pupils from them who have no idea of civilised behaviour.