The statistics show that across the country, an average of just over one school day a year is lost to truancy - a figure that has remained the same since 1994.

However, they also point to wide regional variations in truancy rates. For example, schools in inner London are facing a worse problem than schools in the South West.

The figures, published on Tuesday by the Department for Education, come at a time when the government is introducing policies designed to cut the level of truancy by one third by the year 2002.

Ministers see reducing truancy as a key element of the drive to raise educational standards.

Police powers

New measures that came into force last month allow the police to take children who are out of school without permission back to the classroom.

Courts have also been given an extended role in stopping truancy, with new powers to force parents to take children to school or to require them to attend parenting classes.

And at last autumn's Labour Party conference, Education Secretary David Blunkett launched a £500m initiative to tackle the problem.

Schools that take pupils who have been expelled from elsewhere will receive extra money, while a new "pupil support grant" will be available for schemes across England that stop children playing truant.

"Those who are out of school, those who are disaffected, those who are beyond the reach of the classroom are the ones who get least qualifications, are most likely to be unemployed and who tragically are most likely to be in trouble with the law," Mr Blunkett told the conference.