Danish schools that have been sending text messages to pupils’ parents when their children fail to show up at school have witnessed a significant fall in absenteeism.
Schools in the Scandinavian country adopted the method after seeing the success it enjoyed in neighbouring Sweden, where there was a dramatic drop in truancy levels in the capital, Stockholm.
A number of Danish schools now routinely send SMS messages to parents when their children have not turned up to school, which has made it much more difficult for them to get away with bunking off for the day.
Schools in Holbaek Municipality send texts to the parents of absent students. Meanwhile, Herfolge School in Koge and Vamdrup School in Kolding have already reported that the method is reducing truancy levels.
Soren Kokholm, the head teacher of Herfolge School, said that they started sending messages to parents when the illegal absentee level got too high. He noted that after they adopted the practice, absenteeism dropped by 50 per cent in just three months.