In the bestselling book Freakonomics, the authors Stephen J. Dubner and Steven Levitt outline an experiment which involved fining parents who were late to pick up their children from daycare centres. Somewhat counter-intuitively, the financial penalty only made late pick-ups worse; the parents felt less guilty for the teachers they were delaying, and most parents were prepared to pay the price because they decided it was still worth being late.
This experiment demonstrated the limit of economic incentives without other social motivations: something which seems very timely as we return to the debate around whether parents should be fined for taking their children on holiday during term-time. For Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson, the answer is a resounding ‘yes’. She says that fines are a ‘well-established practice’, ‘are here to stay’, and are actually increasing from £60 a day to £80 a day, which doubles if not paid within 21 days.
Phillipson’s relentless focus on the ‘consequences’ of holidays also seems misguided
This increase is likely to change very little: £80 a day is still small change compared to the hundreds or even thousands of pounds parents save by going on term-time holidays: they may break the rules, but they at least don’t break the bank.
Much has been made of how lockdowns led to a ‘seismic shift’ in parental attitudes towards schooling, but the cost-of-living crisis has arguably had just as important an impact: school holiday pricing hikes were once a frustrating inconvenience, but are now prohibitively expensive. Increases in airline tickets during half terms can be as much as 1,200 per cent; package holiday prices typically double during summer holidays, whilst even the cost of ‘cheaper’ options like camping can triple during peak times.
Criminalising parents and creating more barriers between them and schools achieves nothing. As a teacher, I understand the need to balance individual liberty with social responsibility. Many parents argue that they have a right to take their children out of school, that holidays can be hugely culturally and socially enriching and that we should not estimate the value of out-of-school learning. This is all true. Yet we also need to remember that parents also have a responsibility to keep their children in school as much as possible, to minimise disruption and lost learning, and if they do take them out it is their duty to ensure they catch up on what they missed.
A compromise could be brokered here. Headteachers used to be allowed to grant up to ten days of absence per pupil at their discretion; permission was conditional (for example, subject to pupils taking work with them), and requests could be rejected if they clashed with particularly busy parts of the school year (for example, mocks or SATs preparation). Anarchy did not ensue from this approach, and absenteeism did not skyrocket.
Instead, it allowed parents to retain some sense of agency (and not feel like they were being punished by the authoritarian interference of the state), while also allowing heads to make pragmatic, common-sense decisions. By giving schools more leeway to grant leave, heads could differentiate between students with otherwise very good attendance whose parents were making an exceptional, justified request, and those with regular absenteeism and parents who were too willing to pull them out for any excuse.
However, in 2013 the Department for Education removed this autonomy, and these cordial relationships and quid pro quo agreements have become a thing of the past. Schools are now terrified of being penalised by Ofsted for having attendance rates below 95 per cent, and parents are less likely to be transparent with schools for fear of being put down as an unauthorised absence. Rather than being an effective deterrent, fines just create frustration, as no one seems to be benefiting except for the coffers of the local authority: fines are now seen as just another cash cow in lieu of a more compassionate solution.
Phillipson’s relentless focus on the ‘consequences’ of holidays also seems misguided. Rather than solely concentrating on the fines, arguments and admin caused by one short break per year, we need to look at the other factors behind the staggering numbers of pupils who are severely or persistently absent: illness, special educational needs, poverty, increasing mental health problems such as anxiety, disruptive behaviour, to name a few. It is easier to target the parents who miss the occasional Friday at the end of term so they can fly somewhere early than it is to tackle the much more thorny issues why some parents and students may see school as optional. As the experiment in Freakonomics proves, relying solely on economic incentives will get us nowhere.
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