Currently, a pupil has to miss 20 per cent of lessons to be labelled a persistent absentee. The government plans to lower this to 15 per cent to encourage schools to tackle the problem earlier on.
According to the DfE, 184,000 pupils miss 20 per cent of lessons a year, but more than 430,000 pupils miss 15 per cent.
The DfE argued that statistics show clear evidence of a link between poor attendance at school and low levels of achievement.
Of pupils who miss more than 50 per cent of school, only three per cent manage to achieve five A* to Cs at GCSE including English and maths. But of pupils who miss less than five per cent of school, 73 per cent achieve five A* to Cs including English and maths.
Charlie Taylor, the government’s expert adviser on behaviour in schools, said poor attendance can disrupt pupils’ learning and that of other children.
"Quickly, these children begin to fall behind their friends and often fail to fill in gaps in their skills or knowledge, sometimes in basics like reading or writing," he said.
"Over time, these pupils can become bored and disillusioned with education. These pupils are lost to the system, and can fall into antisocial behaviour and crime. That is why it is vital schools tackle absenteeism."
Schools minister Nick Gibb added: "By changing the threshold on persistent absence, we are encouraging schools to crack down on persistent absenteeism. We will be setting out over the coming months stronger powers for schools to use if they wish to send a clear message to parents that persistent absence is unacceptable."
But Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said the government’s plans are "totally the wrong tack to take" and "will not make schools take action more promptly or effectively".
"In some areas, intervention programmes where education social workers, schools and the police work together to engage young people to ensure that their attitude to school is changed and that their parents are involved in supporting good attendance have had very positive results," she said.
"This kind of intervention may be more expensive initially but in the longer term is far more cost effective in ensuring that all children and young people attend school and achieve well."
The new threshold will inform absenteeism statistics from October onwards. The DfE also plans to release national figures showing the numbers of pupils who miss 12.5 per cent, 10 per cent and five per cent of lessons.
Ofsted will continue to take into account the number of pupils over the "persistently absent" threshold when looking at a school’s performance.
The inspectorate will explore ways of taking this new threshold into account in the 2012 school inspections framework, which is due to come into effect from January 2012.
Ministers have pledged to look at the possibility of further lowering the persistent absenteeism threshold over time.
