Parents have been urged to play their part in cutting the level of unauthorised absences from Scottish schools.

Statistics released by the Scottish Executive showed a slight fall in the number of pupils missing school through truancy and temporary exclusions.

But Education Minister Cathy Jamieson warned that the figures were still too high.

"As in previous years, the majority of absence remains authorised," she said.

Cathy Jamieson: "A big role to play"

"Parents have a big role to play in ensuring pupils don't lose time from school unnecessarily."

She said that the figures showed things were moving in the right direction - although more had to be done.

Measures already taken by the executive to tackle the problem include steps to deal with poor discipline and the promotion of positive behaviour.

Schools are also being supported in taking tough action on bullying.

Family holidays

The figures highlighted the two kinds of absence recorded by schools.

Truancy and temporary exclusions are classified as unauthorised absence.

Sickness, doctor's appointments and family holidays during term time are seen as authorised absences.

On average, each primary pupil missed half a day of school last year through unauthorised absences.

About 53,000 pupils are absent each day

In secondary schools, that figure rose to three days per pupil.

When the figures are combined with authorised absences they show that primary pupils miss an average of two weeks of school a year, while secondary pupils lose four weeks of education.

On average, about 53,000 pupils are absent from Scottish schools each day.

While the number of unauthorised absences in primary and secondary schools across the country fell slightly, they still remained higher than in earlier years.

The city of Glasgow recorded the highest percentage of absenteeism for both primary and secondary schools, with rates of 7.3% and 15.4% respectively.

'Work needs to be done'

Orkney had the lowest figures, with 3.7% and 5.7% respectively - although East Renfrewshire recorded a similar rate for primary school absences.

The Scottish National Party said Labour had broken its pledge to reduce the number of days lost in Scotland's schools through absenteeism.

Mike Russell MSP, the party's education spokesman, said the Scottish Executive had failed to reduce truancy levels by a third.

Brian Monteith: "Move the goal posts"

He said: "Steps must be taken to address the underlying social and economic problems facing many of our children, and more work needs to be done on alternative curricula for those who do not adapt to school at all."

Tory MSP Brian Monteith said the statistics were "desperately disappointing".

"The Scottish government failed to meet their target of reducing truancy by a third," he said.

"They missed their original date of 2001 and had to move the goal posts.

"To have any hope of meeting this aim, they must do more to engage kids in their school life - to turn them on to learning by giving greater diversity and choice rather than turning them off."