'Ghost children' kept off school and made to work

CHILDREN as young as 14 are increasingly being kept off school and pushed into work in the cost-of-living crisis, MPs were warned today

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The Commons education committee was told of the plight of “ghost children” as the social contract between some families, to attend school to get an education, had been “fractured” by the Covid pandemic.

High energy costs were also leaving some parents struggling to ensure children had clean school uniforms which was in turn fuelling truancy.

Headteachers in London and the wider South East continue to see problems of persistent absenteeism many months after the end of the pandemic.

The Canterbury Academy in Kent told MPs that the attendance gap between youngsters from disadvantaged backgrounds (those eligible for the pupil premium), and those who were not, was 7.8 per cent. There had been a “clear increase” in persistent absenteeism among the pupil premium group since Covid.