100,000 children miss school due to cheap flights

MORE than 100,000 children may be missing vital schooling every year because their parents want cheaper holidays during term time or do not think school is important, a major survey on school attendance reveals.

One-in-six parents questioned for the National Educational Welfare Board (NEWB), which monitors and works to tackle absenteeism, admitted to taking their children on holiday during school term. Applied to the entire primary and second level population of around 780,000 children, the figure suggests up to 130,000 students could be affected.

The reason given by almost half the parents involved was that holidays and flights cost less during school terms. While almost one-in-five claimed that school was “not that important” or taking time off school does not affect their education.

Previous NEWB data shows that more than 84,000 children under the age of 16 miss at least 20 days of school every year, at which point the board’s officers must intervene.

NEWB chief executive Eddie Ward said: “We must work towards reducing the levels of avoidable absences by children, whether due simply to casual non attendance or holidays during term. Absences from school disrupts a child’s learning and must be made up for later.

“Good school attendance patterns are developed at primary school and if children are given the message that it is not okay to miss school they could avoid falling into a pattern which can lead to poorer exam results and early school leaving,” he said.

However, the survey of 1,000 adults carried out by MORI Ireland found that more people believe missing days at second level is more significant than absences from primary school.

Asked what they thought were the main reasons for some children missing a lot of school, the most common answer was that parents weren’t bothered, or that pupils were ill. Those questioned also recognised the significance of other factors such as problems in the home such as substance abuse, or children being bullied but the socio-economic background of regularly absent children which is a major factor was cited by less than 5% of the survey group, although official figures show children from poorer backgrounds are more likely to miss school regularly.

The survey found that more than four-in-five people believe a child’s schoolwork will be affected if they miss more than 20 days a year.

“Many thousands of children’s life chances are limited because they don’t go to school regularly. The State is struggling with skill shortages at a time when one-in-20 students don’t sit the Junior Certificate and one-in-five don’t sit the Leaving Certificate. In the long term, this gives rise to other costs to the State in the form of increased supports and to the individual in terms of unfulfilled potential,” Mr Ward said.