UK Govt. Fines Families For Taking Their Children Out Of School For Holidays

Adeline Pilford has just been fined £240 by Surrey County
Council after taking sons Milo, nine, and Rocco, eight, who is autistic, (all
main picture) out of school in the first fortnight of June for the fourth year
running. The Pilford family are pictured enjoying their holiday in the Greek
sunshine island of Kos in June 2014, bottom right. Shahnawaz Patel was also
prosecuted for taking his sons Omar, 11, and Eiad, eight, (top right) out of
primary school to visit their desperately ill grandfather in Gujarat, India, in
December last year.

According to figures released by the Ministry of Justice,
more than 16,000 parents have been prosecuted for failing to ensure their children
went to school, a 25 per cent rise on the previous year. And many of those
charged initially refuse to pay the penalty, but risk a jail term.

A Government crackdown on truancy imposed by the then
Education Secretary Michael Gove in September 2013 decreed only cases
considered ‘exceptional’ are granted permission for term-time leave. But there
is widespread confusion about what qualifies as ‘exceptional’.

Schools are now encouraged to refer unauthorised absences to
their Local Education Authority (LEA) to impose parental fines. If these aren’t
paid, parents face prosecution, penalties of up to £2,500 and a three-month
prison sentence.

But some parents who were recently fined said they think the
government should sympathize with them instead of punishing them because they had
been through one problem or the other and view the holiday as essential
respite.