§ Mr. ForthTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what measures the Department has taken since 1997 to reduce truancy in secondary schools; and what the cost was of each programme. [R][140583]
§ Mr. Ivan LewisDepartmental expenditure on attendance-specific measures includes around £700,000 on publicity materials aimed at parents, practitioner conferences and research into truancy, £11.25 million for electronic registration systems in secondary schools and around £500,000 for intensive expert support for education welfare services in 60 local education authorities.
This is in addition to funding for a wide range of measures to improve behaviour and attendance provided by the School Inclusion: Pupil Support Grant between 1999 and 2003, through the Behaviour Improvement Programme since 2002 and through the behaviour and attendance strands of the Key Stage 3 Strategy and the Primary Strategy from 2003. Because many of these measures relate to both behaviour and attendance, expenditure on reducing truancy in secondary schools cannot be disaggregated.
§ Mr. ForthTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many pupils committed truancy from secondary schools in(a) 1997 and (b) the most recent year for which figures are available. [R][140584]
§ Mr. Ivan LewisThe level of truancy is properly expressed as the percentage of all available half days missed due to unauthorised absence. The data for unauthorised absences from secondary schools in 1997/98 and 2002/03 are in the following table:
School year 1997/98 2002/03 Pupil population 2,786,943 3,003,590 Number of pupils missing at least one half day 452.900 630,058 Average number of half days missed 20 17 Percentage of half days missed 1.10 1.08