The children missing education scandal

The National Children's Bureau (NCB) has published research which demonstrated the experience of children missing from education. Perhaps not surprisingly, the experiences were unremittingly negative - being at school is good for children at a social level as well as providing an education. The research also pointed out that a freedom of information request had revealed that 33,262 children had been recorded as missing education in 2014/15, but noted that the problem might be significantly worse than this. Finally, the report says that "the government does not collect national-level data", and recommends that it should.

Where children are not attending school, for whatever reason, they are quite probably not getting the level of education the state expects. Some are excluded (properly or improperly), others are ill, some attend private schools, and others are home educated. So more than 30,000 children missing education is a scandal, and it's a scandal also that the DfE does not seem to know the extent of the problem.