7th December 2024
When schools reopened in Scotland after subsequent lockdowns, the expectation was that every child would come back to school, ready to re-engage with their education in person. The reality has been very different. New data uncovered by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) has found that, more than three years on since schools re-opened, the number of children absent from school more than they are present appears to be at crisis level. Most concerning, however, is that due to a vast lack of data, we do not know just how many children are missing huge amounts of their education. These children are out of sight and at risk of catastrophic lifelong consequences if urgent action is not taken.
Scottish Government data released in December 2023 showed that 32.5 per cent of children were persistently absent in the 2022/23 academic year – missing 10 per cent or more of their school time. In comparison, in England – where persistent absence is also at crisis level – this figure stood at 21.2 per cent.
Shockingly, Freedom of Information (FOI) data collated and analysed by the CSJ has revealed an estimated 72 per cent increase in the number of children severely absent across Scottish schools between the 2018/19 and 2022/23 academic years. Severely absent children are those who miss 50 per cent or more of their school time – they are absent more than they are present.
Despite these worrying indicators that school absences are proliferating across Scotland, we can only make very limited conclusions about how many vulnerable children are currently being impacted. This is due to a sizeable gap in the data collected by the Scottish Government. It is not acceptable that Education Scotland does not know how many vulnerable children are regularly missing large parts of their education.
Currently, attendance data is only published every two years and 2022/23 marked the first release of persistent absence data. Even though the inclusion of persistent absence in this release was welcome, there is no available Scottish Government data on persistent absence for previous years, which does not allow for yearly comparisons or for patterns to be tracked. Nor did the data include any breakdowns of persistent absence by pupil characteristics, which would help identify which pupils are most affected.
Furthermore, the Scottish Government has not collected any data on which pupils are severely absent, which means this particularly vulnerable cohort of so-called ‘ghost children’ are not only out of school, but also out of the Scottish Government’s sight.
This contrasts to England, where expansive data on the school absence crisis is collated and published termly – including persistent and severe absence and breakdowns by pupil characteristics. Furthermore, official statistics tracking school attendance are published fortnightly, to give indicative figures for absence rates over the course of the year and allow for immediate monitoring of estimated figures and patterns. Despite increasing the quantity and regularity of data collected, the response to the absence crisis in England has not been ambitious enough to tackle the scale of the problem. Similarly, there has been a distinct lack of action taken by the Scottish Government to try and get to grips with this crisis, in addition to the inadequate data collection.
Failure to get these children back to school will have enduring consequences for them, for wider society and for the economy. For as long as we are not able to track detailed patterns of school absence and understand more about the characteristics of pupils affected, we cannot even begin to address this unfolding crisis. That is why, at the core of our plan for change in this report is a call for more regular and comprehensive data to be collated and published by the Scottish Government. This should be alongside a package of support designed to understand and remove underlying barriers to attendance and rebuild the relationship between school and families. It is time to bring these children back into view and back into school.
