On-the-spot fines for truants' parents
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Your support makes all the difference.Parents of children who repeatedly skip school face on-the-spot fines as part of a Government purge on truancy.
Police and education welfare officers will be given the power to issue instant penalties to parents who turn a blind eye to truanting by their youngsters. Fines introduced last year for drunkenness and wasting police times range between £40 and £80.
Charles Clarke, the Secretary of State for Education, signalled last night the measures would be included in the Queen's Speech tomorrow. He said it was "completely unacceptable" half the pupils found playing truant are with their mother or father.
The plan will be backed by a pre-Christmas drive by police and welfare officers on truancy. They have been drawn up following disappointment among ministers that previous initiatives have made little impact on the problem.
Education authorities have been reluctant to use existing powers to prosecute negligent parents, who can be fined up to £2,500 or ordered to attend parenting classes.
Mr Clarke said "malcontents" who disrupted classes would be dealt with, promising the appeals process over expulsions of unruly youngsters would be reformed to give more power to head teachers.
"We need to have a situation where there is order in class and where sanctions are taken against children who don't respect that order," he said.
The Education Secretary also set out plans yesterday to give every state school the right to apply to ditch the National Curriculum and set its own pay scales for teachers.
The proposal marks a shift from the tight restrictions that characterised the first five years of Labour in power.
Mr Clarke made clear schools would need to earn their freedom through good inspection reports. Ofsted would be "pivotal" in deciding which schools would be granted freedom from Whitehall, he said.
Speaking at a conference to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Ofsted, the Government's education watchdog, he added: "I want as many schools to qualify. As standards continue to rise, there is no reason why all our schools can't eventually qualify. It's an offer of freedom for all, not a free-for-all."
Eamonn O'Kane, general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, said: "Any move to weaken such a national framework will meet with strong resistance."
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