OVER 57,000 students miss school each day, according to a new report published yesterday.
The figures are contained in a National Educational Welfare Board’s (NEWB) report which calculates attendance from the academic years 2006/07 to 2007/08.
It shows that approximately 31,500 of truants are primary students while 26,000 are post-primary students.
This equates to a loss of 12 school days per student per year in primary school and 13 days in post-primary school.
NEWB’s study reveals that about 58,000 or 12 per cent of all primary school students and 57,000 or 17 per cent of post-primary students are absent for 20 days or more per year.
Close to 17,000 pupils are suspended from school every year with another 150 students expelled.
Overall, 15,915 teenagers were suspended from secondary schools in the academic year 2007/08 – along with 1,143 primary pupils.
Rates of non-attendance were found to be higher in special schools and in urban areas.
Absenteeism was also higher in vocational, community comprehensives and disadvantaged schools.
Some 95 per cent of primary schools and 91 per cent of post-primary facilities responded to the NEWB’s survey.
Fine Gael education spokesman Brian Hayes described the absenteeism figures as “disturbing” and warned they may be far worse given that the data used is out of date.
“The true depth of the school absentee problem cannot be known as the figures that are being relied upon are two years old.
“How can Minister Coughlan hope to get a handle on non-attendance when she doesn’t know what she is dealing with?”
However, a spokeswoman for the NEWB rejected Mr Hayes’s comments.
“The data cannot be used to make comment on year-on-year trends in attendance but it serves as a valuable benchmark for school attendance in Ireland and can be used to monitor non-attendance, expulsion and suspension in all of the country’s primary and post-primary schools.”
