http://www.opendemocracy.net/truancy_vs_de_schooling_0 Comments for "Truancy Vs De-Schooling, " en http://www.opendemocracy.net/truancy_vs_de_schooling_0 Truancy Vs De-Schooling Tony Blair’s crusade to raise education standards was dealt a triple blow with figures showing souring school truancy levels, a student drop-out rate of nearly 25% and a surprise fall in state schools entries to top universities. Truancy jumped by almost 10% last year to its highest level, despite almost £1 billion in government spending since 1997 to tackle the problem. Jacqui Smith, the School Standard Minister, announced a crack down on the “stubborn minority of 888 students at 146 schools who were responsible for a fifth of all truancy. Teachers will be required to identify the most persistent offenders and their parents will be threatened with jail if attendance does not improve. The number of children playing truant has risen by more than a third to 1.4 million since Labour took office. DFES revealed that more than 55000 pupils skipped classes every day in the past school year. Of the 1,381,458 truants, almost two thirds or 793,628 are teenagers. As in previous years, the highest number of truant are in the North East and West, Yorkshire and Humberside followed by London. In the past Muslim parents were accused for taking children back home during term times because state schools do not cater for their cultural and linguistic needs. &nbsp;<a href="http://www.opendemocracy.net/truancy_vs_de_schooling_0" class="read-more" title="Read the rest of this posting.">Read the rest of this post...</a><p><a href="http://www.opendemocracy.net/truancy_vs_de_schooling_0">read more</a></p> http://www.opendemocracy.net/truancy_vs_de_schooling_0#comment Europe &amp; Islam faith &amp; ideas Thu, 01 Dec 2005 20:55:36 +0000 info_28 31831 at http://www.opendemocracy.net