Parents will see a standardised text

The favourite pastime of teenager mobile phone-holders is being used to take the temptation out of playing truant.

Two schools in Dublin are testing a scheme that will inform parents about absent pupils - through a text alert.

From the start of the school year in September, all students who skip lessons at Portmarnock Community School or Manor House in the Irish capital's Raheny suburb will appear on a computerised database of absentees who qualify for an automatic standardised text message.

Although, some have yet to supply parents' mobile numbers.

Portmarnock principal David Sweeney said: "If the absenteeism is legitimate, parents can ignore the message.

"If not, they can ring the school.

"This has been introduced to comply with new legislation in the Irish Education and Welfare Act, requiring schools to notify parents and for parents to take more responsibility for the whereabouts of their children."

The act means parents of persistent truants can be fined or even imprisoned.

Tim Rafferty, managing director of Dataset IT Systems, which operates the technology, said: "Schools can notify 100 people with half a dozen clicks of a mouse."