20,000 Scottish pupils missing half their classes

Almost 20,000 pupils in Scotland missed more than half of their lessons last year, a report has found.
As the figures were released, ministers were warned that their failure to get children back to school would cause lasting societal harm.
A new report from the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), a think tank, found that 2.7 per cent of pupils in primary, secondary and special schools were “severely absent” in the 2022/23 academic year, equivalent to a 70 per cent increase on pre-pandemic levels.
Severely absent means they had missed at least 50 per cent of their lessons and, based on population figures, the CSJ estimates this equates to 19,059 pupils.
Researchers also found that children with additional support needs, such as a disability or difficult family circumstances, were four times more likely to be severely absent from school than their peers.
Figures published by the Scottish government in March showed that almost a third of pupils, or 32.2 per cent, were persistently absent last year, missing more than one in ten lessons. In England, this figure is more than 10 percentage points lower, at 21.2 per cent. Only 2 per cent of pupils in England were severely absent.
Of the 145,000 pupils who sat exams in Scotland this year, pass rates fell across the board. Their results, published this month, were described as “not good enough” by the Scottish education secretary Jenny Gilruth.
The CSJ, which was founded by the former UK Conservative leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith, said the government should take action to address “the school absence crisis sweeping Scottish schools”.
Willie Rennie, a Liberal Democrat MSP and spokesman for education in Holyrood, said in a foreword to the report that the government was “veering towards a crisis of epic proportions that could affect our children’s lives for years to come”.
“The first minister oversaw the education system during the pandemic and has acknowledged failings during that period. Now the government lacks the vision and ambition to undo the damage done,” he said.
Kenneth Ferguson, head of the CSJ in Scotland, said the figures were “truly shocking — kids who don’t go to school cannot benefit from school”.
He added: “Failure to get these children back to school will have enduring consequences for them, for wider society and for the economy.”
The report also called on Education Scotland to publish termly data on school attendance including how many pupils were persistently and severely absent.
“The government appears to have no idea of the scale of the crisis, who and where these kids are, and whether they are receiving any kind of education or not,” said Ferguson.
A Scottish government representative said the education secretary was “determined to improve attendance in Scotland’s schools”.
“The Scottish government will publish whole year attendance and absence stats on an annual basis later this year — beginning with the 2023-24 school year,” they added.
“In recognition of the challenge of persistent absence, the chief inspector for education has also been tasked with addressing this during school inspections and to identify successful approaches which can be shared more widely.”
In January, the polling by YouGov commissioned by the think tank found almost one in three parents believe it is not essential for children to attend school every day, while just 70 per cent are confident their child’s needs are being met.
There is “fundamental work to be done in rebuilding the contract between families and schools”, said the CSJ chief executive Andy Cook.
In the King’s Speech last month, the UK government announced the creation of a national register of truants to tackle record levels of absenteeism and stop them becoming part of a lost Covid generation.