The Department for Education has today announced a series of bold new measures to curb rising rates of absenteeism and truancy in the school system, in plans that are sure to shake things up once again.

DfE spokesman, Mr Nigel Planer, announced the scheme, “We are seeing ever increasing rates of truancy in school. Too many of our teachers just aren’t turning up to their lessons. We’ve tried everything we can – longer hours, more marking, seemingly random adjustments to examinations, pointless and laughable attainment measures – but nothing has worked.”

The latest attempt, spearheaded by fictional MP Garrett Lazarus, of the constituency of Malgot Thwapping in Bridgemere, is a marked shift from previous efforts, as he himself explained.

“So far we’ve tried everything we can to make the teacher’s life more enjoyable and varied – we’ve increased class sizes and cut funding to, and in many cases beyond, the bone – it’s time for something different, something radical.”

“A major teacher complaint is not having enough hours in the day to realistically do the myriad array of shit we demand from them, with that in mind we have spoken to the Treasury and the day for teachers will now have 27 hours in it, instead of the usual 24.”

“There has also been a lot of complaint about the constantly shifting examination requirements – so to make things easier all exams will now be marked using the GCSE Mathematics criteria, except for GCSE PE, which will be judged entirely by speedometer.”

Asked if he’d ever actually been inside a school, Mr Lazarus was non-committal, insisting he had heard from several people who have.