Evidence shows that a poor education is one of the strongest contributors to falling into poverty in later life. Scotland used to pride itself on the quality of its education. Unbelievably now 32% of school children are persistently absent from school in Scotland. In England, the figure is 21%.
This report highlights these awful statistics and asks why the Scottish Government is not gathering the statistics on a more frequent basis to allow such young people to be identified and helped. The report suggests that grass roots charities are ideally placed to help the young people, to support families and to work across the barriers with schools to bring a holistic young person-centred solution to the issue of absence.
This report highlights that much more work needs to be done to identify the underlying causes and the potential solutions to address this problem.
