Children missing school to work

Typical job: The morning paper round

Over 100,000 pupils are missing out on school so that they can go to work, claims a survey carried out for the Trades Union Congress.

The survey claims one in 10 secondary schoolchildren in England and Wales are playing truant because of paid work, with boys more than twice as likely as girls to be working when still at school.

It's fine for kids to earn a bit of extra pocket money with a paper round or Saturday job. But it becomes a real problem if they are missing school and finding they can't keep up with school or homework

John Monks, TUC general secretary

And that as well as missing out on lessons, employment from an early age can leave pupils too tired for their school work.

The survey also found that 485,000 school-age children were taking part in some kind of paid employment, including babysitting, paper rounds and holiday and weekend jobs.

Low wages

Other jobs included helping on a market stall, cleaning, working in factories, farms, gardens and as shop assistants.

The TUC says that the statistics showed that European directives on youth employment had made little impact on reducing child labour, with no improvement since a similar survey four years ago.

Many of these children were also earning low wages, with 17% of those working in term time receiving less than £2 per hour.

The survey, based on a sample of 2,500 young people aged between 11 and 16, found that the region with the highest number of pupils playing truant to work was the West Midlands.

Widespread problem

Ian Hart, child employment officer with Surrey County Council, said that he had visited more than 50 business premises since taking up the post last September - newsagents, fish and chip shops, supermarkets.

"In all but one case I found evidence of illegal employment of children."

Usual infringements were starting work before 0700 in the morning or working long into the evening, sometimes up to midnight.

Andrew Hicks: Enjoys his legal paper round

Schoolboy Andrew Hicks - who does a legal paper round - said he enjoyed it.

"It's useful to have experience of work and it's great to have extra money in my pocket.

"It means I can go out with my friends and go to the cinema or bowling or whatever."

The TUC's general secretary, John Monks, understands this but is still concerned.

"It's fine for kids to earn a bit of extra pocket money with a paper round or Saturday job," he said.

"But it becomes a real problem if they are missing school and finding they can't keep up with school or homework."