Ministers will be urged today to track down tens of thousands of “ghost children” who have vanished from education since the Covid lockdown – with Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP warning the scandal is “an unmitigated disaster” that demands emergency action.
The former Tory leader will use the Conservative Party conference in Brighton on October 5 to accuse officials of “losing track” of pupils who never returned to class after Covid.
“They have lost track of these children, and this is completely disastrous,” he is expected to say.
The former Conservative Party leader will say: “Many never went back to school. This has been an unmitigated disaster, and it now needs urgent action.”
His intervention comes as figures show the scale of school absences has ballooned since the lockdowns.
The Education Policy Institute has warned there may be up to 400,000 children in total who are currently not in school – a 50 per cent increase compared with pre-pandemic records.
The number of youngsters who are regularly missing school has also spiralled.
Before the pandemic (2018/19), the number of those persistently absent – missing 10 per cent or more of school time – stood at 4.7 per cent. By 2023/24, it had soared to 7.1 per cent.
And the number who were out of school for the equivalent of half a year or more rose from 60,274 in 2018/19 to a record 171,269 in 2023/4.
Local authority figures estimate more than half of those missing – 54 per cent – are boys.
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Iain Duncan Smith will demand urgent action at the Tory Party conference on Sunday
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Sir Iain Duncan Smith, former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, MP for Chingford and Woodford Green and long-time social reformer, will press ministers to act, linking the “lost” cohort directly to later harm.
“Once a child drops out, the risks multiply – whether it’s crime, gangs, drugs, or mental health. We are storing up huge problems for the future,” he is expected to say.
The conference session will also hear from Andy Cook, chief executive of the think tank, the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), who will argue ghost children are “just one part of a much bigger emergency for boys and young men”.
“The number of male school absentees and inactivity rates among boys has skyrocketed,” he will warn, calling the panel “a call to arms”.
“Who is fathering our boys?” Mr Cook will ask, pointing to rising fatherlessness and the consequences for behaviour, mental health, and life chances.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (pictured here sitting with Kemi Badenoch) will press ministers to act, linking the ‘lost’ cohort directly to later harm
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Since the pandemic, the number of males aged 16–24 who are not in education or employment – NEET – is up 40 per cent versus 7 per cent for females.
Boys are twice as likely to be excluded, and at GCSE score half a grade lower across every subject; girls outperform boys at A-level by over a grade and a half across their best three subjects, Mr Cook is expected to say.
And he will highlight research showing young men are now outearned by their female peers, even among graduates and 3.5 times more likely to take their own lives.
Mr Cook stresses this is not about despair or culture-war point-scoring.
“Boys are struggling in education, more likely to take their own lives, less likely to get into stable work, and far more likely to be caught up in crime. We can no longer ignore this, and it must be a priority for every party in Government,” he told GB News.
And Mr Cook will argue every party must take the issue seriously: “Boys are behind girls through school and into work – and the only areas where they ‘lead’ are suicide and crime. That is not a record any country should accept.”
The think-tank warns that failing to arrest this trend invites both human and fiscal catastrophe.
The CSJ estimates tackling male economic inactivity alone could save £16billion over five years in increased tax revenues and reduced welfare costs.
Family breakdown is also central. Some 2.5 million children now grow up without a father at home – one in five of all dependent children – and the figure has doubled since the 1970s.
Among teenagers in custody, three-quarters report no father figure.
“Absent fathers are a huge driver of crime, mental ill health and educational failure,” Mr Cook said.
Meanwhile, violent crime is increasingly male: 96 per cent of prisoners are male, and in 2022/23, nine in ten victims of teenage violence were boys. Knife crime admissions overwhelmingly skew male.
The CSJ insists the solution lies in rebuilding purpose and responsibility among young men, with better mentoring, support for fathers and positive role models.
“We must stop seeing masculinity as a problem to be solved and start seeing it as a strength to be nurtured,” Mr Cook will say.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith will add political weight to the call, telling ministers that the problem is not going away: “The recommendations are there. The Government must now act.”