Police and educational welfare officers are to patrol streets, shopping centres and known truancy hotspots, challenging young school-age people to explain themselves. Truants will be returned to school and parents given what the Government calls "targeted support".
Minister Ivan Lewis says truancy is a passport to unemployment, crime, drug abuse and even prostitution. Do young people agree? Will the swoops work?
How does it affect the classroom if persistent truants are brought back?
Does it make learning harder for those who want to study?
When the swoops last happened in December, more than 20,000 young people were nabbed. More than a third did not have a valid reason to be out of school. Of them, more than half were with an adult.
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