Truancy crisis as 66,000 pupils are missing school every day

And half of those picked up by police and welfare staff in town centre "truancy sweeps" were with parents who gave excuses such as birthday celebrations and shopping for uniforms for their children not being in school.

In total, there were 7.5million lost school days in two terms alone despite nearly £1billion worth of Whitehall initiatives to tackle the problem.

Yesterday's figures brought the announcement of another crackdown on parents who take their children on unofficial term-time holidays or condone truancy with flimsy excuses.

Ministers also blamed a tougher approach to reporting absences for the increase but were accused by opponents of being "in denial" over the problem. A breakdown of the statistics revealed that 7 per cent of truants were on holiday with their parents without permission from the head - leading to the loss of 530,000 school days in two terms.

Parents who sought the blessing of the school to take their term-time holidays accounted for a further 4.9million lost days.

Ministers insisted that while schools should continue to allow up to 10 days off in 'exceptional circumstances', they should act against parents who take unauthorised holidays .

During the first two terms of the last academic year - the latest period for which figures are available - there was an 8 per cent rise in secondary school truancy rates over the same period in the previous 12 months.

Pupils collectively skipped 5.3million days at secondary school. That translates as to 47,000 secondary pupils dodging school every day. A further 19,000 primary school children were also truanting every day.

The "unauthorised absence" rate edged up from 1.34 per cent in autumn 2005 to 1.35 per cent in autumn 2006 but rose more sharply in spring. Pupils missed 1.61 per cent of days in the spring term 2007 - up from 1.49 per cent the preceding year.

Truancy was twice as bad in the Government's flagship city academies than other secondaries and appeared to be worsening.

Officials admitted last year £885million had been spent on initiatives aimed at improving attendance and behaviour. This year the total is thought to exceed £1billion.

While truancy sweeps have been scrapped after claims that truants have learned to dodge them, further funds have been spent on electronic registration systems and technology to text the parents of absent pupils.

At the same time, schools are issuing nearly 500 £50 fines a week to parents who fail to ensure their children attend.

Children's minister Kevin Brennan-said: "Local authorities should not tolerate instances where parents wilfully take their child out of school without authorisation."

But Tory schools spokesman Nick Gibb said the rise in truancy was "another sign of problems with discipline and behaviour in our education system". • Truants from the 1,800-pupil Chalvedon School in Essex can now be spotted in nearby Pitsea town centre from CCTV stills and video sent to teachers' laptops.

Deputy head Simon Gosden said: "It has been very useful, especially to convince parents who refused to believe their children were truanting."

The next step to beat truancy at the school, which has nearly 100 cameras on site, is to bring in iris recognition and fingerprinting to make sure pupils are in classes when they should be.