The government has drawn up individual programmes for 604 students who are persistently absent from school, according to Education Minister Evarist Bartolo.

The programmes are being monitored and assessed by social workers every month and are tweaked where necessary.

This was one of the measures taken by the government, Mr Bartolo said in reply to a parliamentary question tabled by Labour MP Alex Muscat. Other measures included better monitoring of the attendance system by social workers, the collection of more data and more awareness by school and college heads.

There had been cases where parents could not provide a clean uniform or a packed lunch but were embarrassed to admit this was the case

Career guidance practitioners are also working with individual students to identify vocational training opportunities.

Truancy is a complex problem. The service manager for education psycho-social services, Sandra Cortis, pointed out earlier this year there were a number of factors contributing to the phenomenon, noting it was crucial for it to be tackled holistically.

Thus, while offering children and their families the social support they needed, the curriculum offered should also be one that enticed students to attend school, she added.

Poverty was also a contributing factor, Ms Cortis pointed out, saying there had been cases where parents could not provide a clean uniform or a packed lunch but were embarrassed to admit this was the case.

“Some parents, I’m afraid to say, still don’t understand the importance of sending their children to school. Others, however, may be in a situation where they cannot provide everything for their children and have a sense of pride. So, they would rather not send children to school. And working with such parents takes a lot of effort. Social workers have a tough job in such cases,” Ms Cortis said.

She added it was also relevant to note that efforts to cut down on absenteeism among primary school students seemed to have started to bear fruit, as figures had fallen.

“It’s important that those still young learn that this is not fine and that they cannot be absent from school,” Ms Cortis contended.

Official figures show that the number of pupils who missed school in the first half of the 2016/17 scholastic year was in excess of 300 above that for the whole of last year.

In total, a staggering 8,944 student absences without authorisation were logged among the 11,061 students at secondary level.

Read: Truant youths are skipping school and committing crimes instead

Read: Tackle rising absenteeism holistically, say educators