All local authorities’ education provision for gypsy and traveller children should be audited by the Department for Education - and councils should be given just six months to rectify any failings, according to MPs.

That recommendation has come from the Women and Equalities Select Committee in its report Tackling Inequalities Faced by Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Communities, which says that many such children have been let down by schools, councils and their parents. It took evidence last autumn.

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The report says that for some gypsy and traveller parents “formal education is not seen as a part of those aspirations [for children]”.

As a result, it was “too easy for the education system to write off the potential of gypsy and traveller children, enabling prejudice to continue”.

Gypsy children ‘leave school aged 10’

The committee says that the DfE should carry out a complete audit of all local authorities “to ensure that they have robust policies and procedures on children potentially missing from education”.

Any found with inadequate processes “should be required to remedy them within six months of the audit”.

The report says that gypsy and traveller children often leave school to enter work as young as age 10 and have worse attainment than any other ethnic group. Only a handful attend university.

After key stage 4, 25 per cent of gypsy and traveller children are not in education nor employment.

“We have heard that some gypsy and traveller children are taken out of school as early as the end of primary school, some persistently do not attend and some never register at school at all,” the MPs found.

They said it was unclear where such children went, although some were in “successful and unsuccessful” home education.

The report says: “It is intolerable that any child should not be receiving a suitable education.

“Many parents, schools and local authorities are letting down gypsy and traveller children.”

It says that home education should be “a positive, informed choice, not a reaction to either a poor school environment or family expectations”.

Among its recommendations, the report adds that the government should consider piloting a ‘pupil passport’ scheme to keep track of children when they move schools or enter home education, and that schools should be more ready to challenge racial abuse of gypsy and traveller children, which could be a factor in deterring them from attending school.

Committee chair Maria Miller, a  Conservative MP, said: “Often gypsy and traveller children stop attending school at a very early age because their parents don’t see the relevance for them.

“This means that it is too easy for the education system that would give them the best start in life to write off the potential of gypsy and traveller children, enabling prejudice to continue.

“The government needs to work with schools to make sure that no child falls through the cracks in the system.”