"I had a test and didn't want to do it, so I pretended to be ill", says 13-year-old Mary. But Mary did not enjoy her day off. "It was boring. I wished I had gone to school." Mary's story is not unusual in Britain. According to the latest government figures, pupil absences are rising, despite schools _ truancy  . Dr Philip James from Cardiff University thinks she knows why: "As schools make more efforts to find and punish missing students, students find better ways to avoid being caught." For several years, James has researched teenager truancy and discovered that most truancy was "a response to factors within the school". Students that skip school are not necessarily less advanced or less intelligent. They complained of teachers who failed to engage them, and of "boring" lessons. "Many of them really enjoy school and believe in education, but drop out when aspects of it are ineffective." James says. The views of students like Adam, who believes that skipping lessons has little impact on his schooling, are common. "I only take off for a lesson, or a couple of days. It doesn't affect my education," he told James. James believes that schools need to address the question of why pupils want to leave in the first place. "Pupils need help from the start." she says. "Schools need to look at the reasons for truancy rather than the number, so that instead of walking away from school, students have the skills and chances to talk through problems and make a change." What does Dr James suggest schools do about truancy?
Fire all their unqualified teachers. Improve communication with students. Develop better ways to discover truancy. Introduce more serious punishments.