School attendance in Germany is mandatory, and truancy without a valid reason is punished quite severely
Flew with children on vacation just one day before the start of the holidays, returned a day later – and you can already save a couple of hundred euros. But this, frankly, does not go unpunished. In Germany, it is strictly forbidden to miss school without a valid reason. As Deutsche Welle notes, this is considered an administrative offense.
They are especially vigilant about cases where holidays are started early or extended by a day or two without permission. This incurs a fine: in Düsseldorf, for example, up to 80 euros per missed day, in Cologne even 155 euros. So very quickly any “savings” can be wiped out. The parents pay, of course.
In the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia alone, according to the dpa news agency, education departments and youth welfare offices impose up to 1,200 fines per year for truancy. The majority occur precisely on the last days of school before the holidays or the first days after the holidays.
Excuses like “celebrating grandma’s 80th birthday,” “attending uncle’s wedding,” references to illness, and similar justifications given “after the fact” are not accepted. In Münster, for example, you must provide proof – for instance, a doctor’s note.
Germans monitor school attendance so strictly that at the airport, a police officer might even approach a family with school-age children and ask: “The holidays haven’t started yet, why are you already flying on vacation with your child?” Such a question can also be asked at passport control. And God forbid you answer: “Well, on the last day before the holidays, they don’t do anything at school anyway.” Or: “They only have two physical education lessons today.” A fine is inevitable in this case.
The last such large-scale campaign took place on May 19, the day before the holidays for Pentecost (Pfingstferien). Police conducted a “raid” in Bavaria, checking parents with school-age children at the airports of Nuremberg and Munich. According to media reports, 20 families were caught truanting.
In Hamburg, truants – including those who skip lessons throughout the year – are treated more liberally. First, if someone misses three or more days in a month without a valid reason, a teacher visits them at home, and only after several counseling sessions are their parents fined. But the number of such “final warnings” is simply alarming. In the last school year, teachers in Hamburg had to visit truants more than 1,800 times. Meanwhile, the city has 180,000 schoolchildren.
In Berlin, where statistics are only kept for grades 7-10, the situation is even worse. In the last school year, almost 18 percent of students missed up to 10 school days without a valid reason. It is clear why the German capital decided to toughen penalties for truancy. Result of the last school year: 867 notices of fines. Mostly, the amounts range from 100 to 300 euros. But theoretically, for such an administrative offense, parents of particularly persistent truants can be fined up to 2,500 euros.
However, in some districts of Berlin, they have decided to abandon fines altogether: they believe it won’t help anyway. After all, only a third of parents of truants actually paid the fines imposed last year. Theoretically, for refusal to pay, a court can impose a penalty of preventive detention (for several days). In the Neukölln district, where the situation with school attendance is dire, they decided to take a particularly tough approach. The youth welfare office sent about 180 cases of persistent non-payers to court. So far, however, no one has had to go to jail.