New figures showing a drop in pupil attendance rates in Scottish schools have been described as “not acceptable” by education secretary Jenny Gilruth.
Data published by the Scottish government today shows the overall school attendance rate fell to 90.2 per cent in 2022-23, down from 92 per cent in 2020-21.
The trend has been downward since a high of 93.7 per cent in 2014-15.
The overall persistent absence rate for the 2022-23 school year was 32.5 per cent, meaning that just under a third of pupils in Scotland had an absence rate of 10 per cent or more.
However, persistent absence was higher in secondary, where 41 per cent of students had an absence rate of 10 per cent or more.
In three authorities, over half of secondary students were persistently absent: North Lanarkshire, 50.2 per cent persistently absent in secondary; South Ayrshire, 50.2 per cent persistently absent in secondary; and West Dunbartonshire, 55.6 per cent.
Ms Gilruth said: “The rates of persistent absence highlighted in these figures are not acceptable. I am absolutely clear that there must be a renewed drive across all levels of governments and agencies to address this as a priority.”
Persistent absence to be focus of inspections
Ms Gilruth has told Scotland’s chief inspector for education, Janie McManus, to “ensure that persistent absence is addressed at every school inspection”, along with identifying successful methods of tackling the problem, so these can be shared more widely.
The education secretary also said she would this week bring together members of the Scottish Advisory Group on Relationships and Behaviour - which includes local authority leaders, council education directors, Education Scotland and others - to “focus on persistent school absence”.
Ms Gilruth made her comments as the new figures showed an increase in both authorised and unauthorised school absences.
Sickness was the most common reason for authorised absences, while truancy was the most common factor in unauthorised absences.
However, the report adds that the “biggest contributor to the increase in unauthorised absence from 2020-21 to 2022-23 was unauthorised holidays”, with more parents taking their children on breaks during term time.
Pupils in the poorest parts of Scotland had lower attendance than those in the most affluent communities, the report shows: the attendance rate was 86.8 per cent in the most deprived parts of Scotland and 93.5 per cent in the least deprived areas.
Ms Gilruth said: “We know that absence is among the post-pandemic challenges facing schools internationally and Scotland is not immune from that.
“Education Scotland has already offered support to schools to improve attendance and reduce absence, following the publication of the Improving Attendance [in Scotland] report, which I commissioned last year.”
Ms Gilruth said that as a “first priority” the Scottish government was working with councils to “return attendance to pre-Covid levels and to reduce persistent absence as far as possible”.
Term-time holidays an ‘increasing feature’
Concerns that families are increasingly taking children out of school to go on holiday were raised last week at the Scottish Parliament’s Education, Children and Young People Committee.
Vivienne Sutherland, principal psychologist at Fife Council, told MSPs that “one of the greatest barriers to our schools improving their attendance figures is often unauthorised family holidays during term time”.
At last week’s committee meeting, she said: “That is tricky to address because it is often a financial imperative for families. Despite schools working closely with families to emphasise the importance of attendance, such absences are increasingly becoming a feature across our school estate.”
As well as the fall in school attendance rates, today’s Scottish government figures also showed exclusions increasing by 40 per cent over just two years, although permanent exclusions remain very rare in Scotland.
There were 11,676 occasions when pupils were excluded in 2022-23, up by 3,353 from the 8,323 recorded in 2020-21.
The total was still significantly lower than the high of 44,794 recorded in 2006-07.
School staff workload ‘soaring’
Scottish Labour education spokesperson Pam Duncan-Glancy said: “Scotland’s education system is under immense pressure.
“Classrooms are like pressure cookers with staff and teacher workloads soaring, more early career teachers in precarious work, more pupils struggling in class and displaying poor behaviour and many more pupils not attending at all.
“Soaring absence rates and rising numbers of ASN (additional support needs) pupils demand action to support Scotland’s schools.”
She added: “Jenny Gilruth must wake up to the crisis brewing in Scotland’s schools and act to support staff and pupils.”
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