Latest News |
January 2007 - Geldof's Groupcall slashes truancy in Scottish schools
Anti-truancy technology developed by Groupcall, a company co-founded by Sir Bob Geldof, has helped some education authorities in Scotland reduce truancy levels in their secondary schools by as much as 27%, according to official figures.
The biggest fall came in Dumfries & Galloway where truancy rates have fallen by 27%.
Others include Dundee 20%, Highland 13% and West Lothian 7%. In some places, schools who chose to use the Groupcall Messenger system recorded big drops in truancy levels, whilst neighbouring schools that didn't use the technology saw little or no change.
"This is a phenomenol result," explains Geldof. "Given that truancy rates have been increasing year on year, these figures represent a significant milestone for the technology in tackling truancy. We now have definitive evidence that this inexpensive system significantly reduces truancy. The potential ramifications of that for the rest of the country are huge."
Groupcall Messenger allows schools to send text messages (SMS) to the mobile phones of parents, staff and other school contacts or voice messages to landlines or mobile phones, for a low monthly subscription fee. The system was developed in consultation with primary and secondary schools and provides First Day Contact, unauthorised absence chasing and general parental communication all in one integrated desktop solution. The Groupcall system reads pupil and attendance information live and in real time from the school's management system. A multi-lingual version enables schools to send messages in any language required by the school community.
More than half of Scottish authorities have been using the Groupcall Messenger system over the past year following the announcement of a year-long pilot in 2005 by the Scottish Executive. All authorities that have been using Groupcall technology for a full year have seen either a decrease in truancy or have halted the increasing trend*. Although average attendance in secondary schools was up from last years 90.2% to 90.5%, schools using the Groupcall system saw an average attendance of 91.1%.
"Scotland has led the way and it now underlines the case for a similar pilot to be undertaken in schools in England, Wales and Northern Ireland as well," adds Geldof.
Scottish Education Minister Hugh Henry said: "Education is too important to allow pupils to miss lessons needlessly through truancy. That's why we started a national pilot of automated alerts - currently being used in around 600 schools - to establish whether this would help crack down on truancy.
"It's clear that the systems not only discourage absence but also have an added child protection benefit, alerting parents if their child unexpectedly fails to turn up at school. Following the success of the pilot, I'd encourage more schools to consider implementing absence alerts. Just last week, I announced that all schools would receive a share of £40 million for educational resources - and an alert system is an example of what they could use the cash for."
"I'm sure the alert system will help us continue to make inroads into tackling truancy. In particular, it will free up staff time to concentrate on the hard core of persistent truants - the two per cent of pupils responsible for half of truancy."
For more information - Please contact us at sales@groupcall.com
