A PROVERBIAL stitch in time to tackle truancy could save millions of pounds, according to a charity that advises on charitable donations.
New Philanthropy Capital (NPC) says that lower earnings, greater benefit payments and higher crime means that each truant costs society £44,000 over their lifetime. But, says NPC, a third of the money lost to hardcore truancy could be saved through better intervention schemes.
Schemes such as School-Home Support – which provides full-time support workers to help children with behavioural problems – estimate that they can prevent a quarter of exclusions.
For every £1 spent employing school-home support officers, there is a net saving of £1.24, say NPC researchers. This represents a net saving of £90 million a year, which is more than all the secondary schools in the UK spend on books in a year. But, as The Times Educational Supplement (July 6) writes, not all head teachers want to commit money that could otherwise be spent on a teacher.
Even greater savings could be made by making use of charities such as The Learning Challenge, which is based in the North East. By running classes targeted at different types of truants, the charity is able to save £11.60 for each £1 spent. So although it costs about £12,000 to set up the project, teachers then run it, making it financially sustainable in the long-term.
Advertisement
If all truancy throughout the UK was tackled in this way, NPC estimates that it would save £250 million a year – enough to pay for an extra teacher in every secondary school.