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Parents could be given direct e-mail and text message contact with their children’s teachers under proposals to encourage greater public involvement in schools.

The Government wants to enable parents to follow closely their children’s progress and have concerns answered quickly, rather than waiting for end-of-term reports and parents’ evenings.

The proposals will enable parents to text teachers directly or to log on to a secure website to receive the latest progress reports. Parents may also be given e-mail access to teachers, so they can put questions directly, and be kept up to date with lessons by newsletters.

Truancy will be tackled by schools texting parents if their child does not arrive, and continuing to text each day until the child returns to school.

The Government hopes that the scheme will improve standards by getting parents more directly involved in the education of their children. It could meet opposition from teachers’ unions fearing that it would increase workloads.

Some schools have started pilot schemes that allow parents to be in closer contact, but Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, is setting up a strategy group to work out the best ways to implement the technology across the country.

“It’s revolutionising the way that teachers can communicate with parents,” Mr Johnson told The Times. “In the old days, parents would only know what was going on when they got the end-of-term report or went to the open day.”

He said that a greater involvement of parents in the education of their children should have a dramatic impact on standards. “Parental involvement in education trumps every other factor in terms of whether a child is going to do well,” he said. “It is more important than ethnicity, more important than social background.”

Many parents, particularly from poorer backgrounds, do not get in touch with schools because they are intimidated by the educational establishment. “Parents are sometimes loath to trouble a school unless they feel welcome, so a strategy that encourages people to express their concerns is really sensible,” Mr Johnson said.

“When you talk about the most difficult to reach, it’s the parents who don’t feel particularly empowered, are not as pushy as they might be because they are inhibited or lack confidence. This can help to break down those barriers.”

It will not be compulsory for parents to become involved — for example, they will not have to give schools their mobile phone numbers or e-mail address — but Mr Johnson believes that most will want to take part. The strategy will be overseen by the Schools Minister, Jim Knight, and will take into account the experience of schools that are spearheading the use of technology.

Cramlington Community High School in Northumberland has developed parent-to-teacher e-mail access. Cardinal Wiseman Catholic Technology College in Birmingham has set up a website for parents to communicate with staff. Hundreds of schools already have “first day” contact systems, texting parents on the first day that a child does not show up.

In another school, parents text questions to the teacher, which will be stored until the teacher can respond. “So it is not a case of teachers trying to get on with teaching being bombarded by text messages,” Mr Johnson said. “We can’t put extra burdens on teachers. It is not about teachers having abusive messages, the whole thing has to be filtered properly.” The strategy should be ready by the spring.

A spokeswoman for The National Union of Teachers foresaw substantial practical difficulties in parents texting teachers directly. Not only would teachers have too little time, but texting raised the issue of teachers’ right to privacy as they should not be contactable by parents 24 hours a day.

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