Truancy rates 'holding back performance of UK schools' The UK lags behind countries such as Poland, Estonia, Albania, Peru, Indonesia, Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic in a new truancy league table. In China-Shanghai, only 0.7 per cent of pupils admitted to skipping school, while numbers were as low as 1.5 per cent in Japan and 1.8 per cent in Korea. Other countries with low rates included Iceland, the Netherlands, Hong Kong and Ireland. The worst performing nation was Argentina where almost six-in-10 pupils missed at least one whole day of school, it emerged. Today, the Government insisted it had dramatically clamped down on truancy in England following a series of reforms, including tougher fines for parents who condone absence and more flexibility for schools to introduce more family friendly term dates. This has led to a sharp drop in the number of pupils classed as "persistent absentees" - from 450,000 in 2010/11 to 311,000 in 2012/13, it was claimed. Elizabeth Truss, the Schools Minister, said: "This analysis by OECD further underlines the very real consequences of missing school - and shows we are right to crack down on pupil absence from school. Getting good maths grades helps young people get good jobs, means they earn more and provides the best protection against unemployment. This is why it is vital children attend as much school as possible. The OECD asked 15-year-olds to complete a questionnaire as part of a three-yearly assessment of achievements in maths, reading and science across the developed world. In the UK, just over 15 per cent of pupils admitting missing one or two days of school, while two per cent skipped three or four days and almost one per cent played truant for at least a week. Separate figures show that 12 per cent of pupils quizzed by the OECD "skipped some classes" - but not a whole day - in the two weeks before the test. Researchers warned that truancy was "negatively related" to the performance of a country's education system overall, , adding: "Students who reported that they had skipped classes or days of school at least once in the two weeks prior to the test have lower scores than students who reported that they had not skipped classes or days of school." Pupils who missed at least a day of school lagged the equivalent of more than a year behind their classmates in maths across the developed world, the study found. Those who only missed a number of lessons were just under a year behind the average.