Thousands of the county's secondary school pupils are missing more than a fifth of the school year and have been classed as "persistently" absent by the Government.

And Preston ranks among the county's worst performers, with more than one in 10 school children regularly failing to turn up for classes.

The shock statistics were revealed this week by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF).

Community leaders have said the findings were "not good enough".

In total, 6.9% of secondary school youngsters across the county
– around 4,800 pupils – missed more than 20% last school year, due to issues like truancy and holidays.

Chorley MP Lindsay Hoyle, who asked for the figures, said: "It is not acceptable, that is the truth of the matter.

"What is going to be done to bring the figures down and what can we do to ensure this does not continue?

"That is what we need to be looking at."

Coun Ken Hudson, leader of Preston Council, said: "It is certainly not good enough and it is something that Lancashire County Council and school governors should be addressing."

Lancaster and Wyre and South Ribble have the county's lowest levels of absenteeism.

The figures relate to all the county's state secondary schools – including maintained schools, city academies and city technology colleges.

Ken Cridland, secretary of the National Union of Teachers in Lancashire, said high-pressure testing regimes were leading youngsters to "fall out of love with learning".

But he added: "In Preston one of the factors which has been mentioned quite often by teachers is there are some people of different ethnic origins who take their children off abroad for quite a considerable time. That could distort the figures."

A 'persistent absentee' is defined by the DCSF as a pupil missing more than 63 sessions in the year – typically missing more than 20% of the school year.

Across England, the number of persistent secondary absentees is around 7% – meaning seven areas of Lancashire are above the national average.

But Coun Vali Patel, cabinet member for schools at Lancashire County Council, said Lancashire was performing well compared to the national average.

He said: "We take pupil attendance very seriously and have accessed DCSF support and limited additional funding to target a small number of schools where persistent absenteeism has been identified as a particular concern."

In 2005, LCC announced that parents whose children persistently play truant would face fixed penalty notices as part of plans to get tough on the problem.

That followed truancy officers in Lancashire being given lessons from police in how to caution parents who let their kids bunk off school.

And last year it was announced Preston schools would be among a selection of schools with a hardcore of truants to pilot a text messaging system to stop kids bunking off.

Preston's Christ the King Catholic High School, Tulketh Community Sports College and Corpus Christi Catholic Sports College were among those involved.