Bunking off?

When I was in the city centre this morning I was surprised by the number of school age children that were wandering round, mostly without an adult. Now I know that the schools have not broken up for the Easter holidays yet because most of them finish tomorrow.
It is quite normal to see children of all ages hanging around in the shopping centre in school hours during the week but they all disappear very swiftly if a policeman is spotted. I do know that the authorities have an inspector who patrols the shopping centre with the police from time to time and stop any school age child whether with a parent or not, to find out why they are not in school.
Sometimes it is quite obvious that these children are playing truant and the fact that they are carrying their school bags is usually the main clue. As most schools don't appear to have a proper uniform now, it seems to be black trousers and navy sweatshirts for most of them here, it makes it hard to tell which school they attend.
If we did not attend school even for one day, the school inspector was round staight away to find out why and we would never dream of not attending. Today's parents don't really seem to care whether their children attend or not.
In my last job dealing with long term unemployed, I came across a large number of 18 - 24 year olds who had not worked since leaving school and the main reason was down to literacy and numeracy problems. When questioned, most of these youngsters had 'bunked off' school because nobody had told them how important education was. Many of them had been thrown out of home at sixteen because of their behaviour, a lot of them also had criminal records and some even had a drug habit.
I think this shows how badly our society is broken and the cracks are showing at an ever earlier age.