Reporters: JEREMY JAMES
JEANNE LACHARD , JOHN PITMAN JACK PIZZEY , DESMOND WILCOX HAROLD WILLIAMSON
This week: Our School
Truancy has become an alarming problem. No one knows how many children ' bunk off' school. Some experts put the figure as high as half-a-million a day.
The teacher shortage, raising the school-leaving age, overcrowded classrooms, difficult family backgrounds, all contribute to the problem.
In the London Borough of Tower Hamlets - where more than 600 schoolchildren are absent from school every day - two teachers have set up an experimental school for truants, aged 8-15, in a crypt under a church.
Experts who realise that the juvenile court isn't an answer to the problem are watching with interest as this tiny experimental school grows. Already there's a 100 per cent regular attendance. Now the children are pleading for the school to stay open at weekends.
Producer JENNY BARRACLOUGH Editor ADAM CLAPHAM