Attendance figures improve, but 56,000 pupils absent from school daily

Almost 56,000 children are missing from school every day despite improvements in overall attendance levels.

The figures emerge from the latest school attendance report for the National Educational Welfare Board, which details absenteeism rates during the 2010/2011 school year, which also reveal that almost 110,000 children miss over a month of school every year.

More than 31,000 primary pupils and more than 24,600 second-level students miss school every day, the equivalent of one or two in the average primary class and one in every 13 at second level.