‘More to be done’ to bring down school absences, says education secretary

Seventeen per cent of primary school pupils and 28% of mainstream secondary school pupils were classed as persistently absent in 2022-23. Photograph: Don McPhee/The Guardian

The education secretary has admitted that there is “more work to be done” to improve pupil attendance rates in England after official figures showed levels of persistent absence remained double those of pre-pandemic years.

The figures for the 2022-23 school year published by the Department for Education confirmed that pupils at state schools in England were absent at much higher rates than before Covid, including authorised absences for illness as well as unauthorised absences.