So, like, Murdo Fraser, this Scottish Conservative dude, he’s like super bummed about how many kids in Perth and Kinross are ditching school, you know? Apparently, some new info came out saying that the number of days students were skipping class went from 34,995 to a whopping 49,150.5. That’s a lot of missed school days, man.
And get this, not just in Perth and Kinross, but all across Scotland, over 180,000 students are playing hooky at least once every two weeks. That’s a whole lotta absences, if you ask me.
Fraser, he’s all like, “Yo, I’m seriously worried about all these kids skipping out on school in Perth and Kinross. The SNP Government needs to get their act together and sort this out.” He’s calling on the Scottish Ministers to wake up and smell the coffee, you know?
According to some data Fraser got his hands on, almost 185,000 primary and secondary students were missing school every other week in 2023-24. And like, 71,852 of them were ditching class once a week. That’s like, a huge chunk of the school year these kids are missing out on.
Fraser thinks this whole situation is making the education system go down the drain. “Kids need to be in the classroom to learn, not out gallivanting around,” he says. Parents in Perth and Kinross are probably freaking out just as much as he is when they see these crazy stats.
The Scottish Government is saying that the overall attendance rate in the country is 90.3%, which is like, three points lower than before the whole pandemic mess happened. So, it’s not looking too great, you know?
Oh, and the Perth and Kinross Council mentioned that when they mark a kid absent as “Truancy or Unexplained absence,” it could just mean the student didn’t bother giving a legit reason for skipping. They’re like, “Don’t jump to conclusions, these numbers might be higher than the actual truancy cases.”
But yeah, it seems like there’s a real problem with students skipping school in Perth and Kinross, and Fraser is not having it. Hopefully, the authorities can figure out a way to get these kids back in the classrooms where they belong.
