BERLIN, May 23 (Xinhua) -- The Association of German Teachers issued a statement on Wednesday defending a controversial police intervention against truancy in schools in the German state of Bavaria.
Speaking to the newspaper "Passauer Neue Presse", the President of the Association of German Teachers Heinz-Peter Meidinger said that the unusual measure was necessary to combat the growing incidence of unjustified school absences on days surrounding public holidays.
Describing the police intervention as a "sensible warning sign" to parents, Meidinger said that the parents' disregard for the country's compulsory schooling provisions was "unacceptable."
Shortly before the start of the Pentecost public holiday in Bavaria, police stopped at least 20 families at local airports which had allegedly allowed their children to skip school illicitly in order to travel abroad. Air travel prices usually soar during public holidays, which has allegedly motivated parents to issue false sick notices for their offspring to leave the country slightly earlier.
The German Parent Teacher Associations (BER) has criticized the police intervention as excessive. In the event, police went as far as to file charges against the parents which they stopped for aiding and abetting truancy.
However, Meidinger insisted on Wednesday that the practice of allowing children to skip school to go on holiday was "ethically very dubious". He argued that parents were at least implicitly teaching their children that they could "cheat" and "evade rules" by allowing them to take unjustified school absences.
