School attendance levels in Northern Ireland are getting much worse. Statistics provided by the Department of Education (DE) since 2021 show that 30% of pupils had absence rates which were classed as "chronic" or "severe chronic". This means that a pupil has been absent for over 10% of school days during a school year, which amounts to 19 days and at the higher end of the scale some pupils are missing more than 38 days.

The fact that we have no functioning local government has effectively meant that this problem, identified over a year ago, is not being addressed. Back in February 2022 the BBC’s Robbie Meredith reported that assembly members on the Stormont Public Accounts Committee said they had