Badalona town council is following the example of El Prat, where a similar scheme was first introduced two years ago, and will be fining the parents of children who persistently miss school up to €3,000 euros.

Ten sets of parents in the Sant Roc districts have been targeted initially after a number of alternative options failed to resolve the problem. In certain districts of the town - Congrés, El Remei, La Mora, Sant Roc and Artigas - absenteeism rates are as high as 34%, and there are a total of 140 children already under observation.

There are no official figures available for the pilot scheme in El Prat's Sant Cosme district, though it is believed that truancy rates fell by around 25 percentage points over the first twelve months.