London's truancy crisis
Inner London has the worst truancy rate in England, government figures reveal today.
On any given day, up to 15,000 of London's one million primary and secondary school pupils are missing from lessons.
They are either playing truant or their parents have taken them out without permission.
A typical child absent without permission misses a week and a half of lessons in a year.
But in Greenwich, pupils average 11 and a half days off a year, while in Southwark, the average is 10 and half days.
The shocking figures emerged as the National Audit Office warned that Labour has failed to cut truancy despite spending £885 million on improving school attendance since Tony Blair took power in 1997. NAO chief Sir John Bourn said: "The rate of absence from schools in England has proved difficult to reduce."
Truancy rates have actually worsened in England and the Government missed its target of reducing them by 10 per cent by 2004.
However, in London, shopping-centre sweeps by police and the prosecution of parents has started to have an effect - truancy for inner London secondary schools went down from 1.73 per cent of term time in 2003 to 1.54 per cent in 2004.
For central London primaries, the rate dropped from 1.11 to 0.95. But that was still well above the national rate for all schools of 0.73 per cent.
Of the other English regions, only Yorkshire and Humber, with a rate of 1.5 per cent, came close to inner London.
The Department for Education admitted truancy rates were higher in London schools. But they were improving at 20 times the national average, a spokesman stressed.
Schools minister Stephen Twigg insisted the Government's policies are beginning to work as overall attendance is now at "record levels".
He blamed a "hard core" of 134,000 of England's 6.7 million school-age children for half of all truancy. But shadow education secretary Tim Collins said the Government wasted money on anti-truancy initiatives while ignoring the root cause of the problem - too many children are bored by school.
He said: "Among 16 to 18 year olds, disengagement from mainstream education is the single most significant cause of truancy and low exam attainment that so often leads to low self-esteem and a drift into petty crime."
