UK Education Secretary Charles Clarke gave a keynote speech in which he announced that from now on every truancy will be fined. If the parents of a truant refuse to pay the fine, they face a court summons and, if they remain stubborn, imprisonment. “Discipline begins at home,” proclaimed Charles Clarke, and illustrated this slogan with a promise to impose a special tax on parents of persistent truants, which they will be obliged to pay until their children stop skipping classes without permission.
Such harsh measures are explained by the scale of the problem: around 50,000 British schoolchildren skip school every day. “It is important that parents understand that the law is the law and that they simply must ensure that their children attend school,” said the education minister. “We will be forced to apply sanctions against those who do not understand this.” In addition to fines, the sanctions announced by Charles Clarke include special classes for parents of truants or underperforming students, where they will be taught “parenting skills.”
The National Union of Teachers opposed the proposed measures, saying that they would only lead to more conflicts between teachers and problem students. However, the minister's proposals are based on a precedent: earlier this year, Patricia Amos, a mother of five, was sentenced to two months in prison because her two daughters stopped attending school. True, later the judge reduced her sentence to two weeks.