Truancy remains one of the most persistent problems in the educationsystem with around 50,000 children missing school every day. Anuninspiring curriculum, learning difficulties, apathy and bullying areall to blame, according to the National Audit Office.
Its report, Improving School Attendance in England, which was publishedin early 2005, also discovered that poor relationships with peers orteachers, parental attitude and pupils' home life affected attendance.And schools with high numbers of pupils from socially disadvantagedbackgrounds had the worst record, while those with a high proportion ofpupils from ethnic minority backgrounds tended to have less of aproblem.
In addition, the National Audit Office investigated the Government'sspending on truancy initiatives and found that it had failed to cutrates despite spending almost 900m on behaviour and attendance.In fact, between 1998 and 2004, the level of unauthorised absence hasremained fairly steady at 0.7 per cent, according to the report, whichsaid: "There has been no decline in unauthorised absence, the causes ofwhich have proved difficult to tackle."
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