TRUANCY is always a serious problem -- in that children are denied the once-only opportunity of education and risk being drawn into a life of crime.

But the results of a two-day crackdown on it by police and education officials in East Lancashire are doubly disturbing.

For the anti-truancy drive they carried out in and around Accrington town centre revealed that the problem is getting worse.

And, alarmingly, it showed that some parents were actually encouraging their children to miss lessons.

It is bad enough that this operation found even more children out of school than a similar drive last October when 105 youngsters accompanied by parents were stopped by the special patrol while 12 were discovered on their own. This time, nearly 130 parents with children were challenged and 18 truants were taken from the streets and sent to school.

And this, according to the police, is only scratching the surface of what they believe is a big problem.

Yet, they also find that, in many cases, it actually entails parents being prepared to lie for their children so they can take time off school.

This is disgraceful and irresponsible. And must be particularly galling for teachers that many parents are quick to complain if they feel schools are not delivering a good education for their youngsters, yet among them are those who actively worsen their opportunities of receiving one.

Whether this attitude stems from indifference or wilfulness, it is appalling. For on top of all the social problems truancy encourages -- vandalism, nuisance and theft -- it also amounts to parents actually robbing their own children of the means to get on in life.

It is evident that wider and more frequent purges of the problem are needed and that firmer deterrence is required from the law -- above all, by the book being thrown at all parents found guilty of being accomplices in cheating their children of a proper education.