Truancy levels as bad as ever

The Government has made no progress towards meeting its target to cut school truancy, official league tables show today.

Despite tens of millions of pounds in government grants to education authorities, the truancy rate remains as high as it did in 1998, when former education secretary David Blunkett pledged to cut it by a third by next September.

The same pledge was made for exclusions, and has already been substantially met - at the cost, according to teachers, of increased violence in the classroom.

But today's league tables show that 1.1 per cent of half days - the official measure - are still being missed because of unauthorised absence. In London, the position is worse, with an average 1.6 per cent of half days lost.