The education secretary has admitted that there is “more work to be done” to improve pupil attendance rates in England after official figures showed levels of persistent absence remained double those of pre-pandemic years.
The figures for the 2022-23 school year published by the Department for Education confirmed that pupils at state schools in England were absent at much higher rates than before Covid, including authorised absences for illness as well as unauthorised absences.
While the figures are a substantial improvement over the very high rates of absence seen when Covid was rampant during 2020 and 2021, there are concerns that non-attendance remained stubbornly high this year.
“School attendance is just as important on the last day of term as it is on the first,” Gillian Keegan said. “It’s encouraging to see more children in school this year than last, but there is still more work to be done.
“Barriers to children attending school are wide and varied. We are supporting parents and teachers year-round to make sure children are in classrooms and ready to learn.”
The national figures show that 7.5% of school days were missed in state schools from autumn 2022 to summer 2023, a rise of 60% compared with 2018-19’s overall absence rate of 4.7%.
