Almost 1.3 million primary and secondary school pupils took time off without permission last year - compared with 978,000 in 1997. The area with the highest level of truancy was Edmonton in north London.
The Conservatives seized on the figures, revealed in a parliamentary answer asked by the Conservative MP Mark Hoban. Shadow education secretary Tim Collins said the figures were "an appalling indictment of Labour's mismanagement of our education system".
But the Department for Education and Skills said overall attendance levels had risen and insisted the truants were a hardcore minority.
A spokeswoman said: "School attendance is now at record levels, with 17,000 more pupils regularly attending school every day in the last year - 40,000 more than in 1996/97.
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