Soaring truancy rates since the pandemic are partly down to parents working from home, the head of a leading social mobility charity warned yesterday.
Sir Peter Lampl, founder of the Sutton Trust, said the country needed to have ‘an honest conversation’ about how the rise of remote working since coronavirus hit had ‘affected the obligation parents feel about getting their kids to go to school’.
‘We must look at ways to get more workers back into offices - where, in my opinion, they belong - and, by extension, encourage them to re-appraise their commitment to getting their children into school,’ he wrote in the Sunday Telegraph.
Nearly a quarter of pupils (22.3 per cent) were estimated to be ‘persistently absent’ in 2022-23 - defined as missing 10 per cent or more of their school days - according to the Department for Education.
Before the pandemic, the level was just over one in ten.
In March, Dame Rachel de Souza, the Children’s Commissioner for England, said the figures included a ‘huge amount of Friday absence’, with some children reporting that they weren’t attending lessons because ‘mum and dad are at home’.
Sir Peter, who has spent more than £50million of his own fortune expanding social mobility, said he agreed that working from home was partly to blame.
‘Firstly, we need to look at working from home - and to have an honest conversation about how the ease of moving your working day from the office to your kitchen table has, inevitably, affected the obligation parents feel about getting their kids to go to school,’ he wrote. ‘There’s no ignoring the link.’
